Around the world, women’s wealth and income are growing faster than ever. However wealth managers are not doing enough to engage with them.
EY recently concluded a research report on women and wealth, in celebration of International Women’s Day.
«Women and wealth: The case for a customized approach» uncovered that many female investors globally feel unwelcome and alienated by the investment industry.
Global female income and wealth are growing faster than ever before, making women an increasingly important target market for wealth managers. This is the result of several long-term changes in demographics, economics and technology.
Recent research suggests that women may soon control the majority of U.S. household wealth.
Important Differences
This power, and the relative complexity of their financial lives, means that women represent a huge opportunity for the wealth management industry.
Yet most wealth managers view gender segmentation as being of minor importance. It is hardly surprising that many female investors feel unwelcomed and even alienated by the investment industry.
This paper aims to help wealth managers bridge this gulf. It builds on EY’s latest global wealth management research, focused on client experiences. In the survey, a number of important differences between female and male wealth management clients arise.
The most important include:
Performance: Unlike men, women view achieving their personal goals as more important than investment performance.
Women are more likely than men to switch between wealth management providers, and do so for different reasons.
Experience: Women have distinctive preferences in many areas of client experience. These include more emphasis on security, accuracy and privacy; greater appreciation of high-quality human interactions; more openness toward digital technology; and a greater willingness to share their experiences online.
Trust: Women see transparency and clarity as particularly important drivers of trust. They also place more value than men on advocacy or referrals from family and friends.
Billions in Assets
EY claims their research debunks conventional wisdom about women investors. However, it also shows that many wealth managers need to do much more to connect with this vital group.
Firms need to prioritise the investments in technology, talent and processes that will allow them to provide female clients with tailored experiences.
Wealth managers must act fast and incorporate these changes into their customer experience improvement programs. Those that do so will gain the greatest share of the tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue that could accrue from providing women with better experiences.
