No stocks please, we are Indians

Indians prefer to park their savings in low-yielding bank deposits and postal schemes rather than a booming stock market, which they see as risky, a survey said this week.

Based on more than a million rural and urban households, it found about 45 percent of India's paid workers, or 144 million people, put their savings in bank deposits, and state-run banks were preferred over private ones due to government guarantees.

Commissioned by IIMS Dataworks and Invest India Economic Foundation last December and completed in June, the survey estimated India's paid workforce at 321 million.

About 105 million salary earners -- out of a population of 1.1 billion -- own a life insurance policy. About 21 million are expected to buy policies in the next 12 months, while 36 million invest in postal saving schemes, the survey said.

Over 50 percent of respondents felt investing in equities was risky and only 5.6 million had an electronic share holding account.

India's stock market hit an all-time high on Tuesday and has gained 11 percent so far in 2007, following a 47 percent rise in 2006.

The survey tracks behavioural patterns and preferences for financial products among individuals. More than 100,000 people from the sample households were polled individually. They were aged 18 to 59 and came from in 852 towns and 931 villages.

About 94 million paid workers live in urban areas. Females account for nearly 13 percent of the workforce, the survey said.

India has 4.3 million active retail equity investors, of whom 3.5 million live in urban areas. Approximately 135 billion rupees in fresh investments by workers are expected in the next 12 months, the survey said.

Mutual funds have about 5.3 million investors and 106 billion rupees of new investments are expected, it said.

India's gross domestic savings rate was 32 percent in 2005/06 -- its highest since 1950-51 and one of the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, according to central bank data.