Only 16% Of IFA Firms Have A Female Adviser

The provision of independent financial advice in the UK is still dominated by men as less than 10% of IFAs are female. This is surprising when you consider that:

• 105 women made the Sunday Times Rich List in 2011 all of whom had a fortune of at least £70million and two had a fortune in excess of £1billion.

• A report by Tulip Financial Research in 2010 claims there are now 72,000 women in the UK with liquid assets of more than £2.5million.

• According to the Centre for Economic and Business Research there are more female millionaires between the ages of 18 and 44 than male.

• and it is predicted that by 2025 women will own 60 per cent of the nation's personal wealth.

In the medical world almost half (47%) of GPs are now female. There is really no reason why the world of financial planning should not swiftly follow suit. After all:

• Many of the skills required of a good financial planner, such as listening to clients rather than talking at them and building empathy, come more naturally to women, whereas men have to learn these skills in the main.

• One reason why female GPs have florished is because both men and women feel they can speak more truthfully to a female GP. It follows that people are less likely to put a gloss on their true financial situation when talking to a female IFA.

• There is also a trust issue in that there is a perceived wisdom that female IFAs are more trustworthy than their male counterparts.

• Over many years of advising both males and females it is invariably the woman who takes a less risky, longer term investment approach. Perhaps more men would as well if they were being advised by a female IFA.

Two out of the three directors of Arch Financial Planning Limited are women. If you are a woman seeking independent financial advice we hope you will make contact with us.

If you would like to have a no-obligation discussion with a female adviser please contact us on enquiries@arch-fp.co.uk or telephone 01483 204600 (if local) or 0845 3700 660 (local call charge only) and ask for Sarah Bond.

Are You A Female Financial Adviser?

If you are a female financial adviser living in Surrey, Sussex, Hants, Kent or South London and you are looking for a different company to work with then we would be delighted to hear from you.

Please forward your CV and a note of what you are looking for in complete confidence to sarah.bond@arch-fp.co.uk.

Pensions For Women

According to the Pension Policy Institute 61% of people above the state pension age are women. This percentage is projected to fall to 57% by 2015 and to 55% by 2020 as the higher state pension ages for females works through.

Although the percentage of women over the state pension age will fall, the fact is that very large numbers of women need to think seriously about how they want to spend a considerable portion of their lives and more importantly, how this will be funded..

Women’s work and earnings patterns have a huge impact on their ability to save and their eventual retirement income. Women generally earn less than men and are much more likely than men to have a broken work record because of caring responsibilities. See pension planning for women.

Where Next For The Economy?

We have produced a précis of the economic outlook which was expounded by Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's Economic Editor, at the New Model Adviser Conference and Awards which took place in the Lancaster London Hotel on 12th and 13th January.

Stephanie said that this has been an unusual recession and gave examples such as the fact that we have not seen the level of corporate failures as in past recessions.

Stephanie also dealt with what we should look out for in 2012 and what is happening to the Euro.

The Outlook is More Encouraging From Kazakhstan!

If, as investors, we could get a better grip of what is happening in places like Kazakhstan and the way that the needs and desires of peoples like the Kazakhs will drive the world’s economy, we would stop leaving quite so much money in deposit accounts where it is of little use to anyone.  Instead we would invest in companies both here and abroad which can take advantage of the great global advancement in places which, until now, we might have found difficulty in finding them easily on a map.

For more information on this please refer to the Arch Blog.