The Year of the Indian Retail Investor | Paytm Money Recap 20226 min read
It is 2023! Time for new beginnings as we continue to forge ahead stronger than before.
But let’s take a moment to reminisce and reflect on the year gone by. Even as the markets faced several tests, it was a year when the Indian Retail Investor, both directly in stocks and via mutual funds, took control of the markets.
We dug deep into Paytm Money’s year, and boy, did we uncover some gems!
We’ve got a lot of interesting insights to share with you. Buckle up, it’s time for Paytm Money Recap 2022.
2022 will always be remembered as the year of the Indian retail investor. It was a year of many records. A year where FIIs pulled out a mind-boggling ₹2.8 lakh crores out of the Indian markets (for context, it was twice the previous record outflow (in 2008)). And astonishingly, Indian retail investors, through DII flows, added ₹2.75 lakh crores! Again, almost twice the previous record inflow (in 2018). 2022 was genuinely a year where records were meant to be smashed!
Despite these records, Nifty ended the year with minor gains of about 4%. Small caps though, didn’t have it so good, with the smallcap index down ~13%. But all said, it was a relatively steady year for the markets.
2022 was a record year, with the number of Demat accounts crossing the 10Cr mark, 34% higher than the previous year. Not only did the number of accounts increase, the number of active accounts too increased by 12% to ~3.5 crore active accounts.
It was a year of records at Paytm Money, with our Demat accounts increasing by 59%. The growth was driven by users entering the markets for the first time, with the average age of the new user at 28. This shows the trust and faith young guys & gals have in Paytm Money to manage their wealth.
One of the biggest contributions of Paytm Money and something we are very proud of is make investing and trading truly democratic. What was once an activity restricted to the metros is now common all over the country. Jaipur, Pune and Ahmedabad, along with Mumbai and Delhi are now our top cities in terms of orders.
Outpacing men, the number of accounts held by women grew by 96% on our platform. And they did better too, with their AUM growing by 69%.
If Paytm Money was a matchmaker, we’d surely get Amit and Neha hitched. These were the most common names on our platform.
Amidst all these records and positives though, we should take note of the difficult year that 2022 was, especially for those in Ukraine. The war in Ukraine, the rise in oil prices, and inflation turning out to be not so transient meant that markets had a tough year, with Nifty hitting a low of 15183 in June.
The fall was cushioned by the Indian retail investor. The magic of SIP came to life. 2022 was a year of all-time high SIP flows. Indian MFs have ~6 crore active SIP accounts, and the monthly SIP flows stood at ₹13,573 crores at the end of December, with a total SIP AUM of ~₹6 lakh crores.
The trend was reflected in Paytm Money too, with our users doing 1.3 crore SIP transactions and almost 10 crore orders in stocks and F&O.
2022 was also a year when new-age tech companies found their feet in the Indian Public markets. Investors at Paytm Money too were keen to try out these new-age tech stocks. Zomato was one of the top-traded stocks on our platform.
But hey, the old guard wasn’t forgotten. Tata Motors was the next top-traded stock.
Our users also preferred to enter the large-cap space with the Axis Bluechip fund and get exposure to the IT & Tech sector, with the Tata Digital fund & ICICI Prudential Technology fund.
The biggest stock story of the year was Adani group stocks. The 7 listed Adani Group companies added ₹7.4 Tn to investors’ wealth in 2022. Adani Power topped the charts with a whopping 200% gain. Not surprisingly, Adani group stocks were a favourite among our users too, with almost 20% of our users having an Adani stock in their portfolio.
But it wasn’t so good for the tech stocks. Reflecting the sentiment in the US (NASDAQ 100 index was down more than 30% in 2022), The NSE IT Index was down by ~26% in 2022.
Our blazing fast platform helped users do 50 investments a year and place 510 F&O trades.
Nifty and Bank Nifty continue to be F&O darlings. 92% of our F&O trades were with these as the underlying.
Launched in 2021, Finnifty derivatives are catching up, contributing to about 5% of F&O trades on our platform. Tuesdays (Finnifty expiry) are now almost as exciting as Thursdays (Nifty and Bank Nifty expiry).
And not only have we made it easier for India to trade and invest, we have also made it cheaper. Our simple, transparent and cheaper plans have helped our users save ~₹68 Crores in brokerage fees this year.
Remember, a rupee saved in fees is a rupee extra earned.
This continued in Mutual Funds too. Paytm Money, as one of the largest direct mutual fund platforms in the country, helped save users ₹93 Crores in fees, by enabling investing in direct plans instead of regular plans.
Just like direct plans, ETFs are simple, low-cost, and efficient instruments for investors to enter markets. 23% of our users have ETFs in their portfolio, reflecting the effort we have put into educating our users about the benefits of ETFs.
It pays to start early, and the first minute of market open, 9:15 to 9:16 is the busiest on our platform. And our fast architecture means these orders are executed efficiently and in a breeze!
All of this means our users trust us and show their faith by investing and trading with us. Paytm Money users’ average AUM increased by 39% last year, sowing the faith they had in our robust platform.
Our tech teams work day and night to make our platform safe, easy and efficient. We’ve burnt the midnight oil to give you 215 new features and almost 2 app releases every month.
Education is an important driver of making trading and investing easy and accessible to all Indians. And we have 20,000 hours+ of educational content on our platform to make markets easy and safe for you.
Disclaimer: Investments in the securities market are subject to market risks, please read all the related documents carefully before investing. The securities quoted are exemplary and are not recommendatory. Such representations are not indicative of future results. This content is purely for informational purposes and in no way an advice or recommendation.
Paytm Money Ltd SEBI Reg. No. – INZ000240532, INA100009859 . NSE (90165), BSE(6707). PFRDA Reg. No. e-POP 269042019. Regd Office: 136, 1st Floor, Devika Tower, Nehru Place, Delhi – 110019. Please refer to www.paytmmoney.com for further information.
Market Data Source: Information available in Public Domain
