Chennai: As part of their 10th Anniversary celebrations, BankBazaar, India’s leading online financial services marketplace, launched India’s first Aspiration Index of millennials. Executed by KANTAR IMRB, the BankBazaar Aspiration Index attempts to understand the Indian millennial from a personal finance perspective.
The first of its kind indicator, the Aspiration Index analyses the hopes and desires of millennials based on six goals—Wealth, Fame, Image, Relationships, Personal Growth, and Health.
Index pegs India’s Millennial Aspiration at 87.43
The study pegs the Aspiration Index of Indian millennials at a high of 87.43, reflecting the highly driven and confident outlook of the millennials. South India tops the Aspiration Index at 88.5, higher than the national average, with Chennai at 88.8 topping the index across India. North, East, and West India come up at 87.7, 86.6, and 86.0 respectively on the index.
While Chennai’s top position was not a big surprise, in a revelation of sorts, the second spot in the index was claimed by Jaipur at 88.5. This reflects a sea change in how non-metro millennials aspire and chase their dreams.
With growing career choices, financial independence, and shift in societal norms, more and more women are daring to dream big. On the whole, women ranked higher on aspirations compared to men. This is also reflected in the rising number of female visitors accessing BankBazaar.
Health and Fame Follows the Wealth
For Indian millennials, Wealth is the topmost priority followed by Health and Fame. Despite the regional variations, the core aspirations of the Indian millennials, both men and women, remained the same—a home of their own, sufficient bank balance and a chance to see the world.
The desire to own their own home comes out on top with 47% of millennials calling it their top priority. The study revealed that more than 61% of the millennials are comfortable taking credit liabilities to fulfil their aspirations. This desire resonated across East, West, North, and South India.
Speaking on the occasion of the Index launch, Adhil Shetty, Co-founder and CEO, BankBazaar, said, “The last 10 years have been a whirlwind decade for India in every way. The technology, the generation, and the outlook have undergone significant changes since we started BankBazaar in 2008. So we thought our 10th anniversary to be the perfect time to consolidate our understanding of the Indian personal finance market and see what the future is like. The study confirms several of our prior expectations as well as some surprises. We knew millennials prefer being in control of their financial health. However, we were pleasantly surprised when 91% of the millennials said that they handle their own finances. As these millennials grow older and wiser, we will continue to track and service the changing needs of this segment.”
Interesting Gaps between Aspirations and Readiness
The study also throws up quite a few interesting gaps between aspirations and readiness. The top priority for a typical millennial is wealth, especially owning a home. However, this particular goal has one of the highest aspiration-readiness gaps of 12 points.
Contrary to popular perception, the study showed that millennials are big on saving and investing. Investments are spread across the spectrum from FDs to mutual funds, and on an average, tend to be one-third of their wallet share. However, the choice of investment vehicles, predominantly FDs and insurance as opposed to mutual funds, could be responsible in part for the gap between aspiration and readiness.
Health is the next most important goal, with health-conscious millennials looking at physical and mental well-being as a key life-goal. Incidentally, this segment also has the highest aspiration-readiness gap of 12 points.
Some of the key highlights from India’s first Aspiration Index are as follows:
- South India has the highest aspirational index with 88.57 followed by North with 87.7, East with 86.5 and West with 86
- Amongst all the metros surveyed, Chennai’s millennials top on aspiration (88.86) closely followed by Hyderabad (88.29) and Bangalore (88.29). Further, Metro cities stood at 86.86 and Non-metro cities are at 85.87
- The Aspirational Index of women stood at 87.43, higher than men at 86.29
- Aspiration on Wealth (84.43) is the highest contributor followed by Health (83.86)
The index analyses the relative importance millennials give to various life goals, be they—monetary, lifestyle, or health—as well as their preparedness and likelihood of attaining these goals. To arrive at the analysis, a study was conducted by Kantar IMRB among 1,551 respondents across 12 cities.
The results followed a quantitative research approach by using online panel interviews with the help of a structured questionnaire that was targeted towards salaried men and women between the age of 25 and 35.
A higher importance, readiness and attainment across the six goals indicated rising aspirations. Attributes within each goal were determined based on in-depth scoping interviews before the quantitative phase.
