This year, the Rector of the School Ruben Enikolopov and the President of NES Shlomo Weber spoke at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
On June 6, Ruben Enikolopov presented at a session “Finances and Hype of Millenials: How the Financial Sector is Changing Under the Influence of the New Generation” on the specifics of the financial behaviour of the millennials. Here are some of the trends he mentioned:
- The Millennials' trust to experts is undermined. They are actively involved in financial processes, which does not always lead to good results, because the level of financial literacy can still be low.
- They require high customization of the product: they want to be individual investors at the exchange, for example, and this is a global trend.
- Their risk appetite is lower. They are less willing to invest in risky assets, and more in assets that can be “touched”. In Russia, this trend is less obvious.
- Millennials have a different approach to investing: they are children of the digital age, and they find the product’s user-friendly interface very important. In America, such clients say that they are ready to change a bank simply because they are not comfortable with a platform for communicating with a financial institution. Previously, such criteria as reliability, financial stability, etc. were more important.
- Before investing money somewhere, it can be discussed on social networks, and the personal advice of market participants can sometimes be more important than professional ones.
On the same day the chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation and the NES Board of Directors, a graduate of the School Arkady Dvorkovich (MAE’1994) held a meeting with NES students.
On June 8, NES President and Professor Shlomo Weber took part in the economic discussion "How to enter the top five leading economies of the world is a solution for Russia". Moderator of the discussion, Commissioner under the President of the Russian Federation for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, Boris Titov, asked Shlomo Weber about whether GDP growth can be called the main indicator that could be the main one for determining the dynamics of the country's development. The professor replied: “I think this is one of the indicators and it is wrong to rely on it solely. Now it is not about the growth itself, but about the growth of purchasing power. This is a slightly different story. As one of the indicators - yes, as the only one - no”.
SPIEF has been held since 1997, and since 2006 it has been held under the patronage and with the participation of the President of the Russian Federation. Over the past years, the forum has become an international platform for communication of business representatives and discussion of key economic issues facing Russia, emerging markets and the world as a whole. The main theme of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum - 2019 was the formation of sustainable development.
Photo credits: «ТАСС»
