Investment Opportunities in New Age India for UK NRIs
For many Non-Resident Indians in the UK, the question isn’t whether to stay financially connected to India, but how to do it well. Ashutosh Financial Services runs regular financial awareness sessions because the answers to that question keep changing, and people making decisions about their money deserve to work from current, accurate information rather than assumptions formed years ago. Helping NRIs understand what’s actually happening in India’s markets, and what it means for their own portfolios, is part of the firm’s broader commitment to financial education.
That thinking shaped the webinar “Investment Opportunities in New Age India,” held on 6th May 2024 exclusively for UK-based NRIs. The session was led by CA Rajit Kothari and was built around a straightforward premise: India’s economy has changed enough in recent years that many NRIs are working with an outdated picture of what’s available to them, and a clearer view can lead to better decisions.
The session opened by laying out why India currently stands out among major economies. In 2023, India’s GDP grew by 6.8%, well ahead of the UK’s 0.4%, the US’s 1.5%, and China’s 4.2%, making it the fastest-growing economy among the world’s twenty largest. Growth on its own doesn’t guarantee good outcomes for investors, so the discussion also covered the structural factors that give that growth some staying power: a stable government, ongoing tax and regulatory reform, and credible institutions overseeing banking, capital markets, and insurance through the RBI, SEBI, and IRDA respectively. An independent judiciary was mentioned as another piece of that foundation, since legal certainty matters when capital is being deployed over years, not months.
A recurring theme was that India’s growth story isn’t only about numbers on a chart. The country’s demographics were highlighted as a genuine long-term asset, with nearly 1.5 billion people and 47% of the population under 25, giving India one of the youngest, largest, and increasingly well-educated workforces in the world. That demographic base feeds directly into consumption, and the session pointed to India’s rapid shift from unorganised to organised retail and services, alongside a fast-growing digital economy that now leads the world in UPI transactions and ranks second globally in internet users. The manufacturing sector was also discussed in this context, with global supply chains diversifying away from China and India positioned to capture some of that shift, supported by rising exports and steady private-sector capital investment.
One area the session addressed carefully was currency. Comparative inflation data from 2019 to 2023 showed the UK running notably hotter than India in the most recent year, 7.7% against 5.5%. The explanation offered was that currency depreciation tends to reflect two forces working together: the inflation gap between two economies and the pattern of foreign capital moving in and out. For NRIs converting between pounds and rupees, this is a practical consideration rather than an abstract one, since it affects the real value of returns over time.
From there, the session moved into the actual investment routes available to NRIs, explained with enough context that someone unfamiliar with Indian markets could follow the reasoning. Mutual funds were presented as the simplest entry point, low-cost and accessible from as little as £5, though the point was made that many investors pick funds randomly or chase new fund launches rather than building a portfolio around their own risk appetite and goals. Portfolio Management Services were explained as a step up for those wanting a more concentrated, professionally managed equity portfolio, typically requiring a larger commitment and a longer holding period.
The discussion then turned to less familiar territory for most attendees: unlisted and pre-IPO shares. The logic here is that investing before a company lists publicly can offer stronger returns, since a listed company’s growth story is already visible to the market and priced accordingly, whereas an unlisted investment carries more uncertainty and less liquidity. A case study on Tata Technologies illustrated this concretely, an investment made in early 2021 grew roughly sevenfold by the time of its IPO and subsequent listing, translating to an annualised return of around 88%, though such outcomes reflect a specific, favourable case rather than a typical one. The session was equally direct about the challenges here: deciding which companies are worth backing, and working out what a fair price actually is, both call for real diligence and comparison against listed peers. Alternative Investment Funds were introduced as a more structured way to access this space, run by experienced fund managers, with the added detail that AIFs handle their own tax compliance on gains from listed securities, so investors aren’t managing that reporting themselves.
Global diversification also had a place in the conversation, with a look at how UK-based NRIs can invest directly in US stocks and ETFs. Real estate, by contrast, was discussed more cautiously. The session noted that property in India can be illiquid, management-intensive from a distance, and slow to convert back into usable funds, particularly for a generation of NRIs less inclined to relocate and manage physical assets themselves.
Sessions like this one reflect a simple idea: NRIs make better financial decisions about India when they understand India as it actually is today, not as it was a decade ago. Ashutosh Financial Services continues to organise these conversations because financial literacy isn’t a one-time achievement but something that needs revisiting as markets, regulations, and opportunities evolve.
