About 16% of the D and E classes made investments in 2021, says survey

About 16% of Brazilians in the D/E classes managed to invest in financial products in 2021, but the lack of knowledge about the types of investments available in the market among people in this class is still great.

The data are from the Brazilian Investor X-Ray survey, carried out since 2017 by the Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Market Entities (Anbima) in partnership with Datafolha, and released this Friday (6). It is the first time that the survey provides information on this group of the Brazilian population.

The class A/B investor index was 52% and that of class C, 29%, in 2021. Among class D/E people, 82% said they did not know/do not use any financial product, while in class A /B this share is 44% and in C, 67%.

“It is expected that a smaller number of families in the D/E classes will be able to save and invest. In fact, a significant portion of these families live in a situation of social vulnerability. But it is important that we look more closely at these families who are able to invest, to understand their strategies, assess whether there are products and services that are suitable for their needs and understand what kind of financial education initiatives can help them save and invest better”, evaluates Marcelo Billi, Anbima’s superintendent of Communication, Certification and Investor Education.

Search for security

When choosing where to invest, people from the D/E classes preferred to put money in durable goods and real estate (3%), in addition to their own businesses (3%). Financial investments, in turn, appeared in only 1% of the responses in this group, a much smaller share when compared to classes A/B (14%) and C (5%).

Savings was the most used financial product among investors from classes D/E, preferred by 14% of investors in this group, following the behavior of people from other classes. Almost a third of these people (28%) who invested made more than one contribution a year and 24% at least once.

For 41% of them, the advantage of making investments is financial security or the possibility of being able to put together a reserve. Investors in classes D/E still expect the investment to give a good return (14% of respondents) and consider it a positive point to be able to redeem the investment, without prejudice, if necessary – an advantage indicated by 8% of the people in this group.

Own home is objective

The main objective for more than a third of respondents from classes D/E (34%) is to take this resource applied and fulfill the dream of owning a home, a preference also pointed out among classes A/B (28%) and C (28% ).

Another 15% want to use this money as an emergency reserve and there is a relevant share of these people (12%) who seek resources to start a business, more than those in classes A/B (6%) and C (8%).

Banks and face-to-face service are preferred

When going to invest, people from the D/E class go in person to their banks (60% of all investors), 23% use their financial institution’s website or application and 4% use the bank’s call center, the opposite behavior of people from classes A/B and C.

Of the total number of D/E investors, 26% use face-to-face contact with the manager or advisor to decide the best product to invest. But, for 23%, the advice of relatives and friends is also taken into account in this moment of choice. News sites rank third, with 9% of respondents saying they use these channels to make investment decisions.

The D/E class profile

The D/E class is composed of more than half of women (59%), with elementary education (61%), with an average family income of R$ 1,492, about two thirds (62%) are economically active and 44% live in the Northeast region. Less than a third (22%) have a current account with traditional financial institutions and only 4% with digital banks.