Upwardly mobile urban Indian professionals are now more serious about saving for retirement, says a study by financial planning company Ameriprise India.
This is in contrast to Ameriprise’s study in January last, which ranked retirement planning the lowest in the financial priority of affluent urbanites.
In terms of goal-setting, affluent Indian urbanites are now putting more emphasis on retirement planning, Kim M. Sharan, President, Financial Planning and Wealth Strategies, Ameriprise Financial Inc, told Business Line.
“The focus on long-term and individual aspirations has significantly increased from survey to survey. Longer term goal-setting is becoming an important opportunity for the Indian consumer,” she said.
Key priority
Nearly a quarter of respondents (24 per cent) of the new survey — Trends and insights into the financial goals of Indian consumers — say retirement is their key financial priority.
This represents a 140 per cent increase from the last survey, when only 10 per cent categorised it as a key priority.
“Retirement planning is becoming a more important part of the conversation with both our existing and prospective clients. That, we believe, is a welcome change, as planning for the future is something everybody should do,” Sharan said.
Survey findings
Nearly 700 working professionals across six cities — Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune — were surveyed to create a statistically representative sample of upwardly mobile urban Indian professionals.
When it comes to financial planning, the Indian consumer continues to put family first. But this trend is declining.
Forty eight per cent of those surveyed said family was their top financial priority in 2013. Though a sizeable figure, this represents a 22 per cent drop from the first edition of the survey.