Bengaluru has the highest credit demand from millennials: Study

Bengaluru: CASHe, AI-driven financial wellness platform, on Thursday released the Financial Mood of the Millennials 2022-23 report, an exclusive and proprietary analysis based on a pool of 540,000 customers. The report reveals unique and valuable insights into the millennials borrowing, spending, and investing habits.

Unforeseen medical and monthly expenses are the top two reasons for availing short-term digital credit followed by shopping, home renovation, education, etc. Bangalore leads all the cities in India for credit demand followed by Hyderabad, Pune, Ghaziabad, and Gurgaon. The data also throws up a surprising insight – West Bengal, Punjab, Gujarat, Assam, and Kerala represent the states from where millennials with the highest bureau scores have availed credit from CASHe. Incidentally, the customers chose UPI (27 per cent) as the second most preferred repayment method after e-NACH (36 per cent). 2022- 23 also saw an uptick of 1 per cent in women borrowers compared to previous years.

The report also sheds interesting light on millennial investment habits using the customer base of its Sqrrl investment platform. It is observed in the report that 68 per cent of millennials seek assistance from financial advisors for making investment decisions. Another 45 per cent trust social media as a prime source to make investment decisions.

The report also states that about 37 per cent of millennials are still somewhat financially dependent on their parents, but a majority of 63 per cent of millennials are financially independent. SIP has emerged as the most popular option for online investors, accounting for 35 per cent of their investing activities, interest in digital gold (18 per cent) is beginning to catch up, followed by tax-saving products (15 per cent), goal-based investments (10 per cent), real-estate (9 per cent), and fixed deposits (5 per cent).

There is a growing consciousness among millennials to start saving early for their post-retirement life. More than 33 per cent of millennials stated they believe in saving 20 per cent of their annual income to become financially secure for retirement.

Speaking on the release of the FMOTM, 2022-23 Report, Founder Chairman, CASHe, V Raman Kumar said, "The report offers unrivaled access to a large sample of data covering over 540,000 millennials – the insights provided here are valuable to policymakers, financial institutions, and researchers to better understand the borrowing, spending and saving habits of over 125 million credit-starved and underbanked urban mass of millennials. The India consumption story is defined by the credit and spending habits of this cohort. CASHe is committed to building its entire financial wellness business around catering to this cohort in order to create a financially inclusive Bharat in the coming years."