# About the Global Retail Investing Initiative


## Why is retail investing important?

The empowered investor can access, learn about and trust financial services. A collaborative focus on enabling the empowered investor will help spur a responsible investing ecosystem.The  Global Retail Investing Initiative seeks to better understand this cohort of retail investors – their financial goals, preferences and behaviours. We have found for the most part retail investors are in markets for the long term. It assesses the current gaps that exist in empowering retail investors to engage in capital markets in a responsible manner. We lay out the empowered investor framework which finds that education, access and trust have an interplaying role in enabling long term financial well-being.


**52%** Retail investors accounted for 52% of global assets under management in 2021

**30 million** New brokerage accounts in the United States since 2020

**120 million** Individuals have joined capital markets in India since 2021


## About the Initiative

Historically engaging in capital markets, through investments in securities such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, is a tool to grow wealth that has been used both by institutions and the wealthy for decades. In recent years, market democratization has been driven by the advent of no-fee trading platforms, the ballooning of financial information available on the internet, and other technological transformations.

[Learn more](https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-capital-markets-democratization-of-retail-investing/)


### An initiative of the Centre for Financial and Monetary Systems

The Centre for Financial and Monetary Systems is designing and developing a financial system that effectively allocates capital and investment in support of planet, people, and communities.

[Discover more](https://centres.weforum.org/centre-for-financial-and-monetary-systems/home)