Young adults in Thailand and Taiwan have different habits when it comes to saving money. Most young Thais prefer low-risk cash savings, whereas their counterparts in Taiwan find stock investments more attractive.
Thanapon is a 23-year-old Thai master's student studying in Taipei, Taiwan, emphasising that she’s the only one among her friends with a savings habit, since her mother’s expenditure on education for her and siblings drove her to save.
“I felt a sense of guilt that she sacrificed that much for me. At least I wish I could be economically independent and reduce my mother’s burden,” she said.
According to the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the National Statistical Office (NSO) in 2022, 75.4% of Thai households had cash savings and 53.3% had a dedicated savings account at a financial institution, providing low returns but at no risk.
Meanwhile, Wendy is a 24-year-old Taiwanese radiologist, who has been working in a hospital in the capital of Taiwan for two years. Her saving approach is through regular and fixed monthly investments in an exchange-traded fund (ETF), benefitting from increasing commodity prices.
“If I just put my savings in a savings account, my balance would only afford me fewer and fewer things, due to the rising cost of commodities and market inflation. The negligible interest on savings accounts doesn’t grow my assets. So, after taking advice from my friends, I started to invest my savings,” she said.
Taiwan Depository & Clearing Corporation (TDCC) 2023 statistics revealed that 53.4% of Taiwan’s population have stock trading accounts.
By contrast, another young Thai in their first job, Chuen, 22, who works as a news reporter in a media company, said that regular income is not sufficient to make any savings or investments.
“I don’t have enough income for savings, basically I spend money on what I need or want. I think I’ll consider saving money after I’m 30, but for now, no,” he explained.
This aligns with research from Krungsri Research in 2025, which found that 52% of Thai Gen Zs cite insufficient income as the main reason behind their inability to save for the future.
