Insights Into Awareness Level and Investment Behaviour of Salaried Individuals Towards Financial Products

Abstract

Diverse financial products have been introduced these days in Indian market. Each of these financial products offer a range of benefits and varying options with respect to interest rates, exposure to risk, time period of the contract, fees etc. Most of the individuals are not able to take advantage of higher returns offered by these products due to lack of financial awareness. Thus they must be made aware about risk and return characteristics of these products by designing an appropriate financial education program so that people can invest in these financial products. For designing an effective financial education program, current awareness level as well as investment behavior of individuals towards financial products must be known. This paper examines the awareness level and investment behavior of salaried individuals towards financial products. Results of the study suggest that respondents are quite aware about traditional and safe financial products whereas awareness level of new age financial products among the population is low. Also majority of the respondents park their money in traditional and safe investment avenues.