65% of Russians have savings, the VTsIOM poll showed. They mostly keep them in rubles, dollars and euros. 35% of citizens have no savings. The majority of respondents (70%) believe that it is better to spend as little as possible and leave funds for the future. Only one in five wants to spend their salary or pension on the necessary purchases rather than spending their savings on something of value. Against this background, microinvestment is actively developing in the country, which allows you to invest small money in the stock market. Izvestia figured out what it is and how to invest even a trifle in securities.
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Savings growth
Only a third of Russians (36%) are confident that it is better to put free money in a bank, follows from a poll by VTsIOM. Almost half (46%) believe that they should be taken from there.
On the whole, Russians began to save much more. If in 2020 65% of citizens said they had savings, then in 2017 there were only 36%.
According to the director of the trade department of the Aton company, Yaroslav Podsevatkin, the increase in the savings of Russians is primarily due to the pandemic.
– On average, the savings rate has increased. In my understanding, this is the first step in improving financial literacy. If you realize that you can lose your job, but life will not stop, the first thing financial literacy begins with is the creation of a safety cushion, ”he told Izvestia.
Against the background of increasing financial literacy, the brokerage market is also actively developing. In 2020, about 5.6 million customers came to it – this is a lot, said the Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia Vladimir Chistyukhin. By the end of the year, there were about 10 million clients on the market, and the assets of brokers, including client funds, grew by 31% and amounted to 14.3 trillion rubles. The number of private investors with brokerage accounts on the Moscow Exchange has reached 10 million. The client of Tinkoff Investments became the ten millionth investor.
“These are already very large numbers that make us pay special attention to the brokerage industry, including in matters of sustainability,” Chistyukhin noted.
Microinvestment is still a new tool, but it is already gaining popularity. On the one hand, it allows you to save money, on the other, to receive income from this.
Tools and strategies
Microinvesting allows you to invest small amounts in the stock market. This can be done using special financial applications. The tool works like a piggy bank: the user regularly transfers “change” from purchases or cashback to the account, or sets up auto payment. The service automatically buys shares, shares of stocks or bonds, depending on the strategy.
For example, Investkopilka from Tinkoff allows you to invest in Eternal Portfolio Bank’s own exchange-traded funds. A share is a ready-made balanced product of stocks, bonds and gold. There is no need to collect it manually and regularly revise it. The average annual return of Tinkoff funds is 14% for rubles, 7% for US dollars and 6% for euros. You can even put 10 rubles in the piggy bank and see how the account balance will change during the day, week or month.
YuMoney (Sberbank) has a similar service, but the entry threshold is higher: you can start investing in Yammi only from 5 thousand rubles. You can also top up your account with at least this amount. All processes are automatic. The user needs to fill out a questionnaire, choose an investment strategy, and the built-in assistant will do the rest. Now the investment products of Sberbank do not allow to invest smaller amounts in the stock market, for example, change from purchases. The credit institution is only working on this possibility so far.
Microinvestment is gradually gaining momentum in Russia. The number of users of Tinkoff Investment Bank reached 1 million in March, the press service of the bank told Izvestia. The largest piggy bank is over 20 million rubles, the average size is 5.6 thousand rubles.
Among the most popular methods of replenishing the Tinkoff Investments investment bank are auto-rounding and cashback transfer – these options are enabled for 57% of service customers. 54% use the transfer of interest on the balance and 14% – regular replenishment. Every month Investkopilka receives rounds from 15 million purchases. The majority of customers – 48% – round their purchases in increments of $ 50, 27% round off purchases in increments of $ 100, and 25% – in increments of $ 10.
Since the launch of Investkopilka, the strategy of Tinkoff funds in rubles has grown by 10%, in dollars – by 4.8%, in euros – by 3.4%.
– Reaching 1 million users is a very important and significant step for us. Our users, saving little by little, reach quite significant amounts and start investing on their own – after the opening of Investkopilka, a quarter of clients started trading in the Tinkoff Investments application for the first time. Thanks to Investkopilka, you can start investing without even having savings and without making absolutely any effort, ”said Ruslan Muchipov, General Director of Tinkoff Capital Management Company.
He added that in the future, the service will be able to independently determine how much to save, and form strategies for each specific client, taking into account his goals, timing of savings, risk readiness and behavior. In addition, they plan to add elements of gamification to Investkopilka.
According to Boris Blokhin, director of the stock market department of the Moscow Exchange, such services are quite widespread abroad, and the Russian market is no exception.
– Participants begin to offer them against the background of growing interest in the stock market. Such services, as a rule, allow investing in exchange-traded funds, the popularity of which has also grown significantly, including among private investors. Now more than 1.2 million people have exchange-traded funds in their portfolios. Today, 58 exchange-traded funds are available on the Moscow Exchange – 42 exchange-traded mutual investment funds (BPIF) and 16 ETFs, which can be purchased using microinvestment services starting from a few rubles, ”he told Izvestia.
international experience
If in Russia investing has not yet become a habit for ordinary citizens, then in the United States this trend has been developing for a long time. According to a Gallup survey, in 2016, 52% of Americans had assets in the form of securities. In Russia, according to the Moscow Exchange, the share of retail investors in the population is 5.6%.
In the United States, many ordinary people invest their personal money in the stock market: students, housewives, teachers and others. The average return on investing in stocks is 11.5% – higher than the percentage of ordinary bank deposits. For Americans, this is an opportunity to pay off loans, save for unexpected expenses and replenish retirement accounts.
Microinvesting is popular with young Americans who cannot invest heavily in the stock market right away. For example, the Acorns app lets you round off each purchase to the next dollar and credits the difference to your investment account. The service also offers ready-made solutions and automates the process.
The private investment market is also actively developing in China, although the first Chinese stock exchanges in Shenzhen (SZSE) and Shanghai (SSE) were opened only in 1990. For comparison, they appeared in the United States more than 200 years ago. In total, there are more than 147 million private investors on Chinese exchanges. As of 2019, they accounted for 99.6% of all market participants.
The leading Chinese micro-investing company is CreditEase. Its founder, Tangning, intends to train the mass investor to invest wisely. To this end, CreditEase has also created robo-consultants who automatically advise on portfolio management based on client age, risk tolerance and other preferences.
In Russia, according to Yaroslav Podsevatkin, most of the citizens so far come to microinvestment out of interest – to see how assets are moving, to speculate.
– Microinvestment will become more and more popular when the most passive part goes there – people with deposits. But this is also the most numerous group, because not everyone needs to earn, for example, 10% – a little higher than the percentage on the deposit. In financial trading, the likelihood of obtaining such a return is quite high, although not without risks.
He noted that services will evolve through a combination of different factors. In this regard, Tinkoff funds, according to the expert, are the very first, simple and very effective replication of the portfolio approach.
– For various reasons, many did not create this instrument in our country. Its simplicity, the ability to replenish an account through a piggy bank is a fantastic thing, people still underestimate it. They relate like this: I came, held it for a week – what did I get? But compound interest is amazing. If we assume that you regularly send some part of your income to your account, do not look for quotes that may be higher or lower, then the process of constant investment with long horizons – a year, one and a half, two – works wonders, concluded Posevatkin.