India, Dec. 3 -- The days when fixed deposits were relegated to conservative investors are long gone. Today's savvy investors are rediscovering fixed income, not as a reluctant concession to age, but as strategic investments for thoughtful wealth creation.

This shift began in post-pandemic years, which unleashed an unprecedented equity boom in India. Armed with smartphones and social media, millions of first-time investors flooded into the stock market. An example is an increase in demat account holders, which were only around 4 crore in 2020, and have increased to 20 crore by August this year.

But then came the reality check.

When the Reserve Bank of India began its aggressive rate-hike cycle in 2022, pushing the repo rate to 6.5% by ...