India’s young investors are changing the markets, and the industry must change too

For decades, the Indian investing journey followed a familiar script, a portfolio built on trust and tenure, and advice delivered as much through conversation as through data. That script is being rewritten, not by regulation or a market crash, but by a generation that grew up with a smartphone in hand and a healthy scepticism of anyone selling certainty.

India’s Gen Z, broadly those born after the mid-1990s, is not just entering the stock market in larger numbers. It is entering on its own terms, and in doing so, forcing stockbroking firms like ours to rethink who it is really being built for.

The DIY shift is already here

At HDFC Securities, the numbers tell a clear story. Nearly 36% of the company’s customers today fall in the 18-25 age bracket, with another 38% between 26 and 35, meaning almost three in four customers are under 35. This cohort is disproportionately gravitating towards our discount broking offering, choosing self-directed, app-first journeys.

This isn’t a rejection of guidance altogether; rather it is redefinition of what guidance looks like. Gen Z investors are leaning heavily on research-backed reports and data to inform their decisions, and increasingly, on AI tools to help interpret that data and flag what to do and what to avoid. For an industry built around human advisory relationships, this is a structural shift and the trust that once sat with an individual relationship manager is now migrating to the platform itself and towards its research depth, its data transparency, and its ability to explain, not just execute.

Gen Zs are going global, going broad and that too in a big way

The second big shift is geographic. Indian Gen Z and millennial investors are no longer content with domestic markets alone. On HDFC Securities’ global investing platform, nearly 75% of users are between 25 and 45 years, a segment actively diversifying beyond Indian equities.

What’s notable is ‘how’ they are doing it. Around 27% of these investors are choosing ETFs over single stocks, and average portfolios hold about 15 stocks evidence of a deliberate move towards diversified, resilient global exposure rather than concentrated bets. SIP participation in global investing has grown nearly 9% year-on-year, signalling that systematic, disciplined investing is taking root even in cross-border portfolios.

The names driving stock-level interest include the likes of NVIDIA, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Amazon and read like a watchlist of global technology leadership. On the ETF side, interest spans S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, precious metals, US treasuries, and semiconductor funds. A large draw here is accessibility, fractional investing that lets someone start with as little as $1 has effectively dissolved the entry barrier that once made global investing feel like a privilege reserved for the wealthy.

The Finfluencer Problem

Not every shift is a positive one. Despite ready access to platforms, research desks, and increasingly capable AI tools, a meaningful share of Gen Z investors continue to lean on social media finfluencers and unverified trading tips over registered financial advisors. This is where digital fluency and financial literacy visibly diverge and where the industry’s responsibility becomes sharper, not lighter.

Sebi’s own data underscores the stakes. Its Investor Survey found that Gen Z households, despite their digital comfort, remain surprisingly risk-averse at a household level with about 79% displayed capital-preservation behaviour over risk-seeking instincts. Yet Sebi’s separate study on individual derivatives traders found that nearly 89% of traders under 30 ended up as loss-makers in the period studied, a sharper loss ratio than for investors above 60. Read together, the two findings point to a paradox that suggests that a generation cautious in principle but exposed in practice, often through instruments and tips that outpace their actual understanding.

That paradox is precisely the opening for the industry. The same generation drawn to unregulated tips is also the generation most receptive to well-designed, research-backed, AI-assisted platforms, provided the information is delivered in a language and format they trust.

What the Industry Must Do

The response cannot be to double down on the old advisory model, nor to abandon guidance altogether in favour of pure self-service. It must be a third path, platforms embedded with credible research, transparent data, and responsible AI tools that nudge investors towards informed decisions rather than impulsive ones thereby effectively outcompeting the finfluencer on the very ground where finfluencers currently win being accessibility and immediacy.

Gen Z is not asking industry to hold their hand. They are asking the industry to deploy better tools, while making sure those tools are trustworthy enough to compete with a 60-second Instagram reel. The firms that internalises this fastest won’t just retain the next generation of investors, they will define how Indian stock broking space looks like for the next two decades.

(The author is MD and CEO, HDFC Securities. Views are personal.)