India solved financial access, now it needs to turn savers into investors: EY

India has built a large-scale financial access ecosystem through digital identity, bank accounts, real-time payments and consent-based data sharing. The next challenge, however, is to turn that access into sustained investment and long-term wealth creation, according to a new EY report.

The report, “Wealth Inclusion in India: Expanding Investor Participation Beyond Metros,” said India is at a “wealth inclusion inflection point”, with the opportunity now shifting from connecting people to financial services to helping households participate meaningfully in wealth creation.

“The first phase of India’s financial transformation focused on access. The next phase must focus on outcomes,” EY said, adding that the challenge is no longer opening accounts or enabling transactions, but helping households “start early, invest consistently, diversify appropriately, understand risk and remain invested through volatility.”

From financial access to wealth creation

EY estimates that India could bring more than 100 million additional individuals into long-term investing over the coming decade. However, the report makes clear that this is an ambition rather than a forecast, and says achieving it will require more than simply acquiring new investors.

“Participation is merely the starting point; sustained engagement is what ultimately creates wealth,” the report said.

The report identifies a broad set of potential new investors, including households in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, women wealth creators, young professionals and Gen Z investors, emerging affluent households, entrepreneurs, business owners and ESOP or liquidity-event beneficiaries.

It also argues that investment decisions are increasingly triggered by financial moments, rather than investment products alone. Salary increases, bonuses, fixed-deposit maturities, tax planning, education expenses, inheritance, ESOP vesting, business liquidity and retirement planning can all become entry points for investment.

According to EY, the biggest hurdle to wider participation is no longer the absence of financial products or digital infrastructure. Instead, it is a combination of confidence, advice and behaviour.

“Many households are financially connected, economically capable and digitally active, but remain under-invested because market-linked products feel complex, volatile, unfamiliar or difficult to evaluate,” the report said.

The report argues that wealth managers will need to combine digital scale with trusted guidance. It also says traditional advisory models are difficult to scale because personalised advice is expensive and resource-intensive.

EY pitches ‘Wealth Stack’

To address this, EY proposes a “Wealth Stack” that would build on India's existing Digital Public Infrastructure.

The framework has five layers: access, data, intelligence, advice and trust. Aadhaar, PAN, CKYC, UPI and digital onboarding would form the access layer, while Account Aggregator, DigiLocker and open APIs would enable consent-based financial data sharing.

The intelligence layer would use analytics and AI for risk profiling, goal identification, portfolio diagnostics and personalised recommendations. The advice layer would combine self-service journeys, hybrid advice and human advisors, while the trust layer would focus on governance, compliance, disclosures and investor protection.

EY said the objective should be to move “beyond product distribution and toward guided wealth creation.”

AI could make advice scalable

The report also sees artificial intelligence playing a central role in expanding access to personalised financial guidance.

It argues that AI can help transform fragmented customer data into goals, recommendations, explanations and actionable guidance, while allowing human advisors to focus on complex financial decisions and major life events.

“AI can provide the advice layer,” EY said, adding that properly governed AI could help democratise access to personalised guidance and financial capability at population scale.

By 2035, EY said, India could aspire to have a much broader investor base, with more households investing regularly and building diversified portfolios. It expects mutual fund AUM to exceed $3 trillion over the next decade, while individual direct equity holdings could reach $2.5 trillion-$3 trillion.