Mutual funds have surpassed FDs as the most popular kind of investment for the first time in the charts.

For the first time, mutual funds are used by more Indians to save than fixed or recurring deposits. According to a BankBazaar poll, 57% of respondents chose mutual funds/SIPs over fixed deposits, while 54% chose fixed deposits.

However, fixed deposits continue to be preferred by the 35-45 age group among salaried workers, compared to 54% of the 28-34 age group and 47% of the 22-27 age group.

Mutual fund investments were highest in the East (67%), followed by the North (65%), and the West (62%). Investing in low-return products such as endowment plans also remained high, with over 46% of respondents investing in them. Surprisingly, 50% of men have invested in traditional insurance coverage, compared to 41% of women.
Surprisingly, bitcoin outperformed public provident funds as an investing option.

At least 32% of respondents said they had invested in cryptocurrencies, whereas just 31% said they had done so through a provident fund.

Women taking the initiative
According to the report, women save more actively than is commonly assumed. Women outnumber men in terms of mutual fund investments; approximately 60% of women have SIPs in place, compared to 55% of men.

Approximately 54% of females and 53% of males have FDs. However, the proportion of men who invest directly in stocks is significantly higher than that of women.
In opposed to 30% of men, around 34% of women have crypto assets.

Rainy day considerations: Why do Indians save?
Concern about emergencies such as hospitalizations was the primary reason for saving a lot of money after Covid. This was carefully embraced by children’s well-being and inheritance. Retirement, it seemed, arrived a distant fourth. Women are more proactive when it comes to saving for retirement, with 60% preparing for retirement compared to 52% of men.

Well over 60% of those polled said they had a retirement fund. This is heavily biassed in favour of women, with 68% of females working in the direction of a corpus compared to 54% of males.
Overall, just 44% of them are aiming for a corpus of Rs 1 crore or more, while only 16% are aiming for Rs 2 crore or more. The majority of responders (56%) had a target corpus of less than Rs 1 crore, with 35% having a corpus of Rs 25-75 lakh.

In comparison to 40% of men, around 48% of women have a target corpus of Rs 1 crore or more. However, just 15% of women have a median target corpus of Rs 2 crore or more, whereas 18% of men have.
The poll also revealed that insurance coverage penetration is quite high among the paid class. Only 3% of people have no health or life insurance. Approximately 43% of respondents have both health and life insurance, and 39% have life insurance with no health coverage.