From crypto bets to SIPs, young India finds its money habit

Like many her age, Srushti I’s first brush with investing was through crypto in 2020 when she was just 15. Back then, the asset class was at the peak of market hype. Her father had introduced her to the idea of investing, but over time she began following market trends and discussing investments with friends and peers.

SIPs eventually entered her portfolio. “It is hard to save money, so it is better to invest it,” she says. Today, the 21-year-old content writer and strategist in Bengaluru invests about 10% of her income. Unlike the stereotype of young investors constantly tracking the market, Srushti rarely checks her portfolio. “It stresses me out,” she says. “I just let it be there for the long term.”

Srushti’s move into SIPs is part of a broader shift. For a generation exposed early to crypto, trading and financial content on social media, SIPs are emerging as a more disciplined investing avenue.


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The trend of investing earlier is visible in data from mutual fund registrar and transfer agent CAMS. The live SIP count among investors under 20 years nearly doubled in FY26, rising 92% year-on-year to 2.9 lakh, while that of 20-30-year-olds grew 15% to 85.5 lakh. SIP gross sales of these age groups rose 19% and 36%, respectively. The surge of under-20s is on a small base.

The momentum among the youngest cohort has continued into 2026. Between January and June this year, live SIPs among under-20s rose 20.9% to 3.15 lakh. Among 20-30-year-olds, live SIPs stood at 84.8 lakh in June, 2.6% higher than in January, though marginally below the March-end level.

Over the same period, monthly SIP gross sales rose 9% for under-20s, from ₹306 crore to ₹334 crore, and 4.1% for 20-30-year-olds, from ₹1,811 crore to ₹1,885 crore.

Crucially, the behaviour is still fragile. Many young investors begin with small, automated contributions, only to stop when markets turn volatile or returns disappoint.

PENNY WISE

For young adults, the entry point to investing can be remarkably small. In Ghaziabad, Khwaish Mittal was 20 when he began putting ₹21 a day into silver and gold from his pocket money while finishing his undergraduate degree in business administration. Drawn by short-form content nudging him to save and easy access through fintech investing apps, Mittal began researching “what is safe” to invest in.

Now 24 and studying law, Mittal invests in mutual funds through Groww and runs separate recurring investments in gold and silver through PhonePe and Paytm. He has since increased his daily investment in metals from ₹21 to ₹45. “I will keep doing it, and I won’t check it,” he says. “I withdraw it when I need it—for a gym supplement or if I want to go on a trip with friends. I don’t want to ask my parents for extra pocket money.”

Mrin Agarwal, CEO of Finsafe India, a finance education company, says one factor behind the shift towards SIPs could be the experience young investors have had with more speculative forms of investing. “Over the last few years, there was a very high interest from the younger generations in doing futures and options and daily trading,” she says. With regulatory studies showing that a large majority of individual derivatives traders lose money, “you’re also seeing those investors turning to SIPs”, she adds.

Fintech platforms are seeing other signs of SIPs getting embedded in the saving patterns of younger investors. On Groww, investors under 25 years hold roughly two SIPs on average, while those above 25 typically run three-four. Flexi-cap funds carry the highest portfolio weightage among under-25 investors and rank among the largest allocations across other age cohorts.

Gold and silver SIPs have also risen sharply on the platform in FY26, led by investors under 25 years, suggesting that younger investors are increasingly using the SIP route to diversify across asset classes.

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“For our parents, the default was a fixed deposit or a recurring deposit; for investors in their 20s, the default is a SIP,” says Harsh Jain, cofounder and COO of Groww. “The habit forms with the first salary.” Jain says the higher adoption of step-up SIPs among investors under 25 years indicates that the behaviour goes beyond a single market cycle and reflects a broader shift in household savings habits.

AWARENESS CURRENCY

Prabin Agarwal, a mutual fund distributor based in Siliguri, says he has changed his marketing strategy in the past couple of years to reach the younger generation. Earlier, he targeted the youth through Facebook; now he is creating short-form educational content for Instagram.

“The youth is looking for short-form content with some humour. They are not averse to knowledge. They just don’t want it to be boring. Later, when they become curious, they may move on to long-form content,” he says.

Another reason for the growing number of SIPs by the under-20 cohort could be the rising cost of education which is pushing parents to start SIPs for their kids.

Eela Dubey, cofounder of EduFund, a higher studies funding platform that helps parents with financial planning for children, and mutual fund distributor Vittam, says education inflation rate is 10% and people are becoming more aware that their disposable income has to go into asset classes that compound their investment.

“In today’s day and age, when young kids spend ₹300 for just a cup of coffee, parents and young adults are probably waking up to the reality that previous asset classes are not suitable in all circumstances. For the young, it is the sheer fact of being alive at a different time than their parents’ that is opening their eyes to investing in mutual funds and SIPs,” says Dubey.

She says 25-30% of her customer base has consistently comprised of first-time investors who are investing on behalf of their children: “They are starting SIPs in the name of their children, minors, so that they have some sort of a safeguard in the future for their education.”

Mumbai-based chartered accountant Richa Khanna began a SIP for her son three years ago, when he was 13, using the money he received on birthdays and festivals. “We have certain goals for his higher education,” she says. “It is better that the money does not stay idle and is allocated appropriately to a fund.”

Pune-based engineer Vishwesh Kulkarni started a SIP of ₹10,000 for his daughter when she was four months old in 2020—although not in her name—and has since increased the amount to ₹40,000 across five SIPs spanning midcap and thematic funds with global exposure.

MARKET TEST

The growing adoption of SIPs among younger investors is being tested by a volatile market and relatively muted returns over the past couple of years. The industry-wide SIP stoppage ratio touched 91.23% in June before easing to 81.87% in July, indicating that the number of SIPs being discontinued or completing their tenure remained high relative to new registrations.

Neelesh Verma, Zerodha’s product head for mutual funds, says SIPs that are eventually cancelled tend to have an average life of only two-three years—far shorter than the long investment horizons typically associated with equity investing. “This is something that can only be solved by educating investors on the right way and having more accredited advisers in the ecosystem,” he says. At Zerodha, where 25-33-year-olds form a dominant customer cohort, about half the mutual fund customers manually make their monthly SIP payments.

“The markets are unpredictable. You don’t know what will happen. Obviously something that has had a boom will have a down cycle also,” says Verma.

The big question now is whether the SIP habit among the young can outlast the market’s idiosyncrasies.