New Delhi: Over 80% of respondents, read parents, who participated in the annual ING Zing survey said they believe that their children follow their money habits. Even more discerning is the fact that children tend to pick up their parents’ spending habits marginally more than their saving habits, at least among those who earn annually upwards of Rs 8 lakhs. Also the study observes that as your income levels go up, children tend to develop spending habits more while parents’ tend to shore up their savings habits. ING Zing Survey, held during the last one month, collected feedback from 4,067 parents across the country.
As e-commerce growth in India gathers rapid pace, the survey also asked parents on their perceptions about children and online shopping. While 84% of parents have shopped online themselves, when it comes to their children a majority of them felt they were worried, for different reasons. And the most prominent of them being “worried that the child be tempted to buy items that are not necessary”. They also strongly felt that children might fall prey to online scamsters.
When asked if they allowed their children to shop online, 49% parents said they will not encourage their children to shop online. About one-third of the parents assist their children in buying a product after being identified or found by the child online.
The Annual ING ZING survey is meant to capture the changing behavioral trends among parents and kids on money management and how they adapt to each other’s needs and requirements. This year over 65% of respondents represented metropolitan cities while the remaining from rest of the country, covering an age group of 25-45 years.
Pocket Money
Pocket money given to the child tends to rise along with the child’s age but what’s interesting is to know what they really earn these days. On an average, children below 10 years get either no allowance or less than 500 per month, those between 15-18 years get below Rs 1000 per month.
Last year over 50% of parents were not in favour of giving out pocket money, but this year we see that two-thirds of parents are in favour of giving pocket money to the child above the age of 10.
Over 80% parents felt that their child is more knowledgeable about savings and more than one-third of parents believed that their child is “smarter about saving” and understand the value of money better than they were at that age. Parents who see themselves as spenders give more pocket allowance to their children. Children who are better at financial planning also seem to receive higher pocket money from their parents. Last year, Zing Survey had observed interesting insights on the concept of pocket money, on how Indian parents use pocket money to reward their children to score high marks in academics and not freebies
Saving avenues
Parents with younger kids prefer to open a child’s savings bank account over other investment options and investing in fixed deposits is second most preferred choice. Children’s education was the most significant reason for parents to save. Among parents with older children Insurance and FDs came out as the most popular methods of investments. For younger kids, 58% parents save below 10%; for older kids, 75% save between 10 to 20%. A majority of parents believed that children only above 15 years should be allowed to operate a bank account independently. This should be seen in the current context where RBI had recently allowed banks to offer independent savings bank accounts to children above 10 years.
Also mothers edged out fathers as influencers when it came to money management by children; 72.7% of respondents thought kids asked mothers maximum questions about money. Also more than half of the parents save less than 10% of their monthly income for child’s future.
 |  | ||
