No less important than Covid vaccine
That financial planning is a vaccine against unwanted expenses has been spectacularly demonstrated by the pandemic.
The fact that financial planning can tend to come across as a nouveau phenomenon for a lot of people in India reflects the need for a more sustained approach to the subject. The Covid-19 pandemic has inflicted enormous financial miseries, reiterating the need to build a fund to counter uncertainties which have the potential to upend lives. Lack of awareness and absence of proper guidance have been major factors behind many people failing to achieve their financial goals and being overwhelmed by financial hardships due to events beyond their, or anyone’s, control.
Financial planners have a very crucial part to play in this ecosystem and thanks to social media, many people are now realising the importance of taking professional help to sort out their money woes. It is a welcome change from the practice of calling up CAs in a sundry manner at the time of filing returns and pretend to explore various investment options, but inevitably ending up kicking the can down the road. The widespread realisation of opening up about money matters will take some time to come in a country like India but a start has to be made.
From today until October 6 (World Financial Planning Day), Money9 aims at highlighting the importance of financial planning in our lives. Financialising India is our motto and we at Money9 are always striving to ensure that our readers are able to benefit from our varied offerings. Our demographic dividend will be of no use if we are able to harness the potential at our disposal. Many people die in penury due to incorrect investment decisions. But when they realise their mistakes, it is often too late. Time has come to build an ecosystem where financial planning is not viewed as a daunting (read: intimidating) task.