'India has highest share of super-rich people wanting to give back to society'

NEW DELHI: India has the highest share of super-rich people globally who want to make a positive impact on society by giving back to their local communities in areas like health, education and children's causes, a report says.

According to the World Wealth Report 2014, released by Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management, more than 90 per cent of India's High Net-Worth Individuals (HNWIs) seek to achieve more than just monetary returns while managing their wealth.

In India, 90.5 per cent of HNWIs viewed driving social impact as either extremely or very important, followed by China (89.4 per cent) and Indonesia (89.2 per cent) in the second and third place respectively. Hong Kong (82.1 per cent) and Malaysia (81.1 per cent) round out the top five.

Mexico (77.1 per cent), Brazil (76.4 per cent), Russia (71.8 per cent), Singapore (70.1 per cent) and South Africa (68.1 per cent) make it to the the top 10.

Super-rich people in Western nations like Italy (66 per cent), Germany (63.4 per cent), the UK (60.2 per cent) and the US (56 per cent) also show propensity to drive social impact.

HNWIs are those who have atleast USD 1 million in investable wealth.

Globally, a vast majority (92 per cent) of HNWIs feel that investing their time, money or expertise to make a positive social impact is important to them, with 61 per cent describing it as very or extremely important.

HNWIs are looking to firms to play a greater role in supporting their social impact objectives, the report said.

The report further said more HNWIs between USD 10 million and USD 20 million rate it as extremely or very important (74.3 per cent), compared to those with between USD 5 million and USD 10 million (68.5 per cent) and those with more than USD 20 million (62.0 per cent).

Health, education, and children's causes are top priorities for HNWIs. About one-third of HNWIs currently allocate resources toward each.

Health, witnessed higher allocations from HNWIs who were over 60 years of compared to their younger counterparts who are under 40.

Education emerged as the second most important priority for HNWIs overall. In particular, 35.3 per cent of those over 60 deemed education as a top priority.

The welfare of older people also attracts a significant amount of HNWI attention, with 23.9 per cent allocating resources toward it, making it fourth on the list of causes.

Age also plays a strong role in the desire of HNWIs to strive for social good.

While 75 per cent of those under-40 cite driving social impact as either extremely important or very important, the tendency declines about 10 per cent with each age segment, reaching a low of 45.4 per cent for those 60 and older.