Jewels in the Crown: As Wealth Mushrooms in India, The Need for Western-Style Advice Grows

Under the blazing summer sun, a long line of BMWs and Mercedes Benzes glide up outside the luxurious DLF Emporio mall in the Indian capital, New Delhi. Perfectly groomed people--impeccably turned out in the latest haute couture and seemingly unaffected by the heat--alight. They are the new wealthy of India, a class of people that since India's arrival on the global economic stage has been growing at a rapid rate. A recent trip to India and conversations with market observers and industry players shows that this is the case not just in the larger cities like New Delhi and Mumbai: The number of high-net-worth and mass affluent people in Indian cities is also increasing fast, and so, too, are their desire and need for financial advice, for new kinds of investments and for the same types of products and services that their Western counterparts have had available for some time.