Retail participation has been very strong in India, says Vikas Satija | BS Events

Long-term investors don’t need to be worried about the present volatility and when it comes to jobs in the wealth management industry, Vikas Satija, managing director and chief executive officer, Shriram Wealth, said in an interaction with Pravin Palande at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit 2026 Smart Investor Arena in Mumbai on Monday. The industry is growing fast and, even with artificial intelligence (AI) coming in, the need for relationship managers (RMs) and wealth managers is only going to increase, he said. Edited excerpts:

 

Do you actually start your day looking at where the Nifty is, where oil prices are? Is it like that?

  

I think you want to watch the key barometers — you want to check how the oil price is behaving. Where is forex at the moment? What happened to the US markets yesterday? Are there any policy decisions which are coming in? I think these are all short-term numbers to be seen. I don’t think one needs to get paranoid about markets that overnight.

 

The long-term objectives have to be still set up on asset allocation, and long-term asset allocation is what drives portfolios. So I keep telling clients: Don’t get so jittery if you see some movement here and there. Yes, if there is a structural movement, you need to see it. But if it’s a movement momentarily for news which has flown last night, don’t get so worried about it. I think long-term investors will still have a better bet to be in the markets.

 

Since 2024, the markets have become volatile — especially after the West Asia crisis. How have your investors behaved and what is it that you are telling them?

 

Let me just take you back to some history. First, look at the ’90s — you had the Asian crisis, 2008 you had the Lehman crisis, 2020 you had Covid and, in between and in the last two years markets have not performed. The US might have done better; Korea doing better was the AI-player. I think the thesis in various markets at various points of investment still remains intact.

 

The good part I think this time in the markets, which we see here in India, is that retail participation has been very strong. And if you see this, it’s the SIP (systematic investment plan) numbers — the way it has been, it’s been consistent, it’s not gone down even till now. If you look at the growth, it has been consistent and I think that speaks volumes. I think everybody is looking at various opportunities and trying to rebalance portfolios based on how the markets are behaving.

 

Post-Covid we have seen that the risk-taking ability of an average Indian has gone up. How do you explain that?

 

Equity investments are a very small portion of the total investments as far as the savings of Indians are concerned. I think what’s good is, as I mentioned, systematic investment plans have made sure that the retail participation increased, and I think that’s the right way to go ahead. Which is the reason you see equity participation going up long term. And forget about just Indian markets — globally if you take any decade across the globe, it’s always the equities which have delivered the maximum returns as an asset class.

 

How much does age matter? Do you follow that rule where you say that the older you are the more you stay in conservative assets?

 

In the earlier times, when all of us were growing up and studying, I think there used to be one thumb-rule everybody used to follow: Whatever is your age, minus (it) from 100, and that should be the debt and equity allocation to go by.

 

I think the times have changed. People have understood that ‘I need an X amount of liquidity and money for my day-to-day living. Beyond that, if I have a decent amount of cash flows, I can take higher risk’.

 

So coming back to your point – what risk I could have taken at 25–30. Obviously I had an earning capacity ahead. Maybe at 60 it has not come down – it may go up – because at that point of time if I have enough savings which is taking care of my day-to-day needs and I still want to maximize wealth and leave a legacy for my family, I may want to do it. So if you look at typical HNI and UHNI  (high and ultra-high net worth individual) portfolios, you won’t see that the equity component is coming down.

 

I think it’s about asset allocation at that point of time – what is the financial goal which I have in mind and what is the risk appetite basis that.

 

Earlier around 2012 we have seen bankers and distributors selling derivative products even to older people who did not understand the risks. Do you think in today’s world bankers and distributors have become very conscious about these things?

 

I think it’s very important to be cautious about the same because at the end of the day derivatives have to be played by institutional players. As individuals, if I have to go and use options, I think it has to be used more for hedging part of the business or (if) at certain places I have more than X amount of corpus and I want to play around by playing into premiums. Ideally, I think from a retail investors’ point of view, the right thing has to be to be making long-term investments directly into instruments which are long-dated. Let’s not try the derivatives options to do that. And I think if you look at the regulators, I think whether it’s Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India), whether it’s the National Stock Exchange, they’ve been coming again and again saying it’s not a play for the retail investors — avoidable as much as possible.

 

How is your firm using AI and how is it going to help your RMs, and, say maybe three years down the line, how do you see this space evolving as an AI-plus advisory?

 

I think what artificial intelligence brings on the table, and what people have to realise, is that you can get any and every data that you want across the table in a few minutes – which we would have taken hours together to put it on Excel. Will AI change over and remove the RM? No. Relationship management is still going to stay. I don’t think that is going to change. It’s the mundane operational jobs or certain jobs which were there to put across on Excel — I think those will go.

 

Do youngsters have a career in finance and markets in a world of AI? How do you look at it?

 

Oh, big time. It again depends upon which part of the segment you are getting in. If you’re coming into a segment of operations, if you’re getting into a separate session where it’s going to be more back- office, I think those jobs will keep getting reduced. But relationship management, if you look at fund management, I think these things will continue to grow. I don’t think so there is a problem. And look at what’s happening in India — the kind of wealth management firms are entering in today, the kind of opportunities which it is throwing about, is crazy.

 

Today even after so many years we have only 15 per cent of our wealth which is getting professionally managed. The same number globally is at 60 to 70 per cent. So there’s no reason why India would not show this, and that’s the reason why you’re seeing so many wealth management firms entering it.

 

Would you hire people with psychology degrees? Because maths, finance — a lot of these things – would be moving to AI, but understanding the psychology or behavior of clients may not…

 

It’s a very interesting point you’re bringing about. We’ve not thought through on those lines, but frankly speaking I think more and more that will become prevalent and important, especially in our wealth industry, because the relationship will matter — how well I can understand the client’s intrinsic value and understand what the client is looking for. I think that becomes important. Not that it was not important, but we never thought on the lines that we should be hiring people with a psychology background. I think it will become an important part. So behavioral sciences will become a far more important part in this business.