Paving A Path To Wealth Creation

A quick look at the idiosyncratic financial lifestyle of millennials

Few months back, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remark on millennials preferring cab services over buying cars and hence resulting in the slowdown in the automobile sector sparked controversy. This led to a lot of memes with the basic premise that most problems in today’s India are due to preferences of millennials. Of course millennials took offense to the remarks, and rightly so.

However, it is also true that millennials’ preferences are changing the world. Different industries and sectors need to evolve to keep up with this new reality. And, millennials are also changing the financial investment market with their less aversion to risk, openness to alternate investment products like crypto currencies and their general outlook of living in the present.

Millennials are individuals who attained adulthood in the early 21st century and grew up in a digital world. They look for investment options that offer flexibility.At 44 crore, millennials form 34 per cent of the India’s population and 46 per cent of the workforce.

According to Suresh Surana, Founder, RSM India, their contribution to workforce is rising, which is particularly true for sectors such as information technology, back office services, logistics, fintech and start-ups. And with this, millennials’ investment plays a significant role in the economy.

Surana believes that the initial focus of millennials has never been on investments, except for the tax saving investment schemes, which provides them some benefit in terms of reduced taxation.