Advising female clients: Financial Education

3 minute read

Financial Education

The second part of our webinar series, Advising Female Clients, took place on 18 May, discussing how the lack of financial knowledge and complex investment solutions are just some of the examples as to why women are not engaging with the financial industry.

With that said, Vanessa Eve, Investment Manager at Quilter Cheviot, began with a presentation highlighting the six valuable lessons learnt to enable women to better plan their financial future. These lessons included:

time in the market over timing the market
volatility isn’t always a bad thing
there is a cost to holding cash
the importance of diversification
the power of compounding
not letting emotions get the better of you

Watch the Financial Education presentation

Addressing these lessons early for women is critical, as they are due to acquire more of the UK’s wealth in the next few years while also having longer life expectancy than their male counterparts. A study by the Office of National Statistics found that 1 in 5 women aged 55 today will live beyond their 100th birthday, however, less than 16% of the UK population are saving enough to maintain their current standard of living in later life.

While it is necessary to improve our savings culture, how much and what we do with these savings is the important factor here. Taking a cautious approach to savings such as cash ISAs, which have been seen to be more popular with women, can actually see their real value deteriorate as a result of inflation. That highlights the significance of understanding market environments and allocating your saving appropriately.

Following Vanessa, was a presentation by guest speaker Jane Coffey of Essentia Analytics, highlighting the best methods to improve female clients’ decision making. When it comes to investing, it is difficult to eliminate any prospect of bias which can come in two forms: emotional/psychological and cognitive.

Jane analyses how our emotions can change as soon as we make an investment as we can feel protective of the newly acquired stock which can cause irrational decisions such as maintaining that position, even when performance isn’t optimal.

As an investment coach, Jane helps individuals with their financial literacy and to determine their risk preferences. Typically, women are more risk averse compared to men which can impede their financial decision making and impact them in the long-term. Therefore, financial planning for both the short and long-term is critical to ensure everyone is able to enjoy longer and more active lives.

If you would like to find out more on the importance of financial education and managing biases within investing, you can watch the webinar on demand which can be accessed by following the link above.

Investors should remember that the value of investments, and the income from them, can go down as well as up and that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. You may not recover what you invest.