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How do you prefer to keep or use your savings?
Prepared by Sophia Balakina
I prefer to use opportunities provided by the local market. I am talking about deposits (reliability is the choosing criterion) and financial instruments on the stock market. To my opinion, the most promising are investments connected with opportunities, which appeared due to creation and development of Regional Financial Centre in Almaty.
First of all I would like to have such savings. Assuming I have it, firstly, I would find out what is the best way to use them. Everything should be considered from the point of view of necessity. Probably first of all I would buy property. After that I would be interested in local and foreign banks, what interests and guarantees they offer. Foreign bank is far away and it’s not easy to reach them. With a local bank our organization had a sad experience. The bank became bankrupt and the money was lost. We got them back several years later but this was unpleasant process. There is no trust to any financial institution, maybe because there is no information about guarantees they offer.
I do no have massive savings. That is why there is no point to talk about investing something considerable into property or investment funds.
But I prefer to have some saving in case of unexpected situations. Most of the time I have them in cash or on my bank account. But often the money we manage to save I and my wife spend for trips. We think that person should use opportunity to see the world as much as possible. That is why we are trying to save certain amount of money, take our children and visit far away countries. Just to see different places. This is an example of using savings, if they appear.
At the moment our family does not have big savings. We took mortgage and are building a house. So a lot of money is spent for current expenses, but I wouldn’t call this an investment to property. This is just improvement of our own living conditions. In our family my wife deals with the money. She once analysed profitability of investment funds and came to the conclusion that their income rates differ significantly. Besides they don’t always correspond with the level shown in the advertisements. After some calculations, my wife thinks that in short term bank deposit is the most effective, and to some extent, the safest way of saving money. In other words, if you need guaranteed income which you plan to use for consumption, such as solving property question, children’s’ education, etc., deposit is the most predictable and manageable mechanism of receiving such income. Dealing with investment funds you need to expect more distant return. Based on my theoretical knowledge, I think that the payback period in stock investments is minimum three years. If during half a year there is no result from investment into securities there is still a reason to wait.
I trust my savings to local banks and investment companies. Taking into consideration stable tendency of appreciation of tenge compared to US dollar, I keep my saving in local currency. Practically every bank offers a flexible deposit, which allows depositing or withdrawing necessary amount any time. I wouldn’t recommend investing into shares and bonds without assistance. It is better to have your saving managed by an investment company, these companies work with saving of pension funds as well as private investors. They know market, situation, and tendencies, which means they professionally react to certain declines and rises. If the period of investment is long (3-5 years), it is better to choose a reasonable strategy, when you have an opportunity to receive 12-15% annually; in case when he period is 1-2 years you can choose a more aggressive strategy. I will repeat once again that professional managers of investment companies would know best about these issues. Talking about investing money into property, I think it is like a casino, you can win or lose.
