Top 3 Financial Priorities for the Next 12 Months

Looking at the year ahead reveals a number of consumer priorities in each market. In Spain (55%), Great Britain (49%), and Sweden (47%), the public are most likely to focus on fulfilling their regular financial commitments such as paying bills and rent. This is a lower priority in China (24%), India (27%) and Hong Kong (29%) but it is worth bearing in mind that our samples in these markets have a higher urban bias than our samples in other markets. Given the past year, it is unsurprising that a significant proportion of consumers in each market are saving money for unexpected hardships. This tendency is highest in Indonesia – where our sample is representative of the online, rather than national population (54%) – Singapore (51%), and Spain (48%), but it amounts to comfortably more than a third of the public in every market except Denmark (20%).

Paying off debts is among the more variable priorities: it is especially important in the US (39%) and Mexico (43%) but appears to be a lesser concern in European nations – in France (18%), Germany (20%), Denmark (22%), and Sweden (22%), it’s a priority for just a fifth of the public. Great Britain (26%) and Spain (30%) are two notable exceptions to this. Saving for retirement appears to be the lowest priority for 2021 in all markets except Hong Kong (31%) and Singapore (33%). It is possible that consumers who might have otherwise paid money into a retirement fund have – in the wake of the pandemic – found more urgent uses for these funds.

Outside of saving money and paying debts, a minority of the global public are looking to resume their normal spending habits as quickly as possible – especially in Italy (15%), Spain (14%) and France (12%). Investment is also a top priority in 2021 among nearly four in ten urban consumers in Indonesia (37%) and Hong Kong (38%). Around a quarter of consumers in China (28%), India (25%) the UAE (26%) and Mexico (24%) feel the same. Buying a home is not a top priority in many markets – in fact, in each European country in our study, it fails to break out of single digits – but many consumers may own homes already. Redevelopment or renovation of the home is a top priority for a minority of consumers (17%). During the pandemic, many younger consumers – and those who were living alone – chose to ride out the crisis at their family home, partly to alleviate potential loneliness, and partly for cost-cutting reasons. Our data shows that in some markets, as many as one in ten plan to do so in 2021.

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