Borrowing beats savings: Indian household debt grew 1.5x faster than assets in 2025, reveals new report
Indian households saw their liabilities increase much faster than their financial wealth in 2025, with borrowing rising at a pace that outstripped the growth in financial assets, according to the Allianz Global Wealth Report 2026. Household liabilities climbed 14.3% during the year, while gross financial assets increased 9%.
The gap indicates that although households continued to accumulate savings and investments, a growing share of the additional wealth was offset by higher borrowing. Consequently, net financial assets grew by just 6.8% in 2025, below the rate of growth in gross financial assets.
Indian household financial assets reach $5.3 trillion
The financial assets held by Indian households rose 9% in 2025 to $5.3 trillion, according to Allianz.
The increase was marginally higher than the 8.6% global average but remained below the 9.8% average recorded across Asian economies included in the report, excluding Japan and China.
Growth varied significantly across asset categories. Insurance and pension assets registered the strongest increase, rising 11.4%, followed by deposits, which grew 9.8%. Securities recorded slower growth of 6.1%.
Despite the stronger growth in insurance and pensions, deposits continued to account for the largest share of Indian household financial assets. They represented 40.2% of the overall portfolio, while securities accounted for 32.7%. Life insurance and pension assets made up another 26.7%.
The figures highlight the relatively conservative structure of Indian household portfolios compared with markets where a significantly larger portion of household wealth is invested in equities and other market-linked financial instruments.
Rising borrowings offset part of wealth creation
Indian households’ liabilities increased 14.3% in 2025 to $1.59 trillion, Allianz said. The pace was considerably faster than the 9% growth recorded in financial assets during the same period.
Net financial wealth is measured after liabilities are deducted from total financial assets. Therefore, the faster increase in household debt reduced the overall pace at which net financial wealth expanded.
The trend in India was notably different from the global picture. Worldwide, household financial assets increased 8.6% in 2025, while liabilities rose by only 3.4% to EUR56.9 trillion.
Indian households have added substantial real wealth since 2019
Despite the faster rise in liabilities, Indian households have recorded strong growth in financial wealth over the longer term.
After adjusting for inflation, household financial assets in India were 57% higher in 2025 than they were in 2019. For Asian economies covered by Allianz, excluding Japan and China, real growth stood at 39.6%, while the corresponding global increase was 22.9%.
India’s 9% nominal growth in financial assets during 2025 translated into real growth of 6.7% after taking inflation into account.
However, the relatively slow 6.1% growth in securities and the large 40.2% share held in deposits meant Indian households had less direct exposure to the global equity market gains that contributed significantly to wealth growth in several other markets.
Asset allocation shapes household wealth growth
The Allianz data also underscores the importance of how households allocate their savings.
At the global level, securities—including shares, bonds and investment funds—grew 12.4% in 2025. This was significantly faster than the 5.7% increase in deposits and the 5% growth recorded in insurance and pension assets.
As a result, securities accounted for a record 46.9% of total global financial assets.
Financial markets were responsible for around four-fifths of the increase in global financial wealth during 2025. At the same time, fresh savings declined 5.4% to EUR4.1 trillion, indicating that market performance played a much larger role than new household savings in driving the increase in global wealth.
