Financial advisers are struggling to engage with and meet the needs of female clients, research published today by Schroders to coincide with International Women’s Day has found.
This is despite 70% of advisers expressing their intention to attract more female clients.
Today’s study unveiled in conjunction with Ad Lucem, builds upon Schroders’ research published in November 2023, which focused on the role of women amid ‘the great wealth transfer‘. For this next stage, Schroders sought the views of 100 advisers with the aim of providing practical assistance to addressing these wealth transfer challenges.
Gillian Hepburn, Commercial Director, Benchmark said: “The findings of this research offer valuable insights into the current dynamics between advisers and their female clients. While advisers acknowledge the significance of women in driving the future success of their business, a considerable number are being lost from adviser businesses, particularly at widowhood due to inconsistent engagement and a lack of understanding.
“Some 62% of advisers admit to not providing a differentiated service based on gender. However, by proactively addressing the concerns highlighted in this research and actively engaging with female clients, advisers have the opportunity to enhance the overall quality of their service while also retaining women and the wealth that will continue to be transferred across and down the generations.”
Women identified the key qualities they look for in an adviser and, when considering these in order of importance, advisers are significantly underperforming the expectations of their female clients, particularly in areas such as trust, value for money and relatability. Furthermore, advisers perceive themselves to be doing a far better job in terms of meeting these needs as opposed to what is happening in reality.
In addition, only 66% of females believed that their financial plan was anchored to and recalibrated in line with their goals compared with the perception of 92% of advisers.
Philip Martin, Managing Director at Unique Financial Planning, said: “Over the past few years, there has been much focus given to inter-generational planning and its impact on firms. The results of this survey – particularly the disparity between female partners’ understanding and that of advisers – indicate there is still much work for us to do to develop strategies to meet that challenge.”
Furthermore, with regards to how advisers are engaging couples, the research highlights that advisers are still favouring the male when it comes to prioritising their communications with two thirds (66%) stating that it is difficult to engage both parties.
Despite 54% of advisers acknowledging that both partners should be equally included in all communication and decision-making processes, 45% of advisers still have the male as the primary contact. This disparity is further emphasised by the fact that only 22% of advisers ensure that the reviews of financial plans always include both partners. Some 56% of advisers also undertake life goal planning without involving the female partner.
Interestingly, this is despite 44% of women confirming that they run their own finances and 65% investing separately from their partner (a fact that only 42% of advisers were aware of).
This perception of female clients extends to the sensitive issue of the death of a partner. A higher proportion of advisers (29%) believe that their female clients would be at a loss to manage the finances, compared with only 9% of females who share the same sentiment.
This overall disconnect, coupled with the lack of efforts to engage them equally, may explain why only 34% of women stated that they would remain with the family adviser in the event of their partner’s death, while 62% of advisers presumed that they would.
