Women hesitant on seeking financial advice

Too many New Zealand women still lack confidence when it comes to dealing with their finances, AMP Financial Services says.

The KiwiSaver provider’s general manager of advice and sales, Therese Singleton, was prompted to research New Zealand women’s attitudes to the financial services sector when she saw worrying data from the US.

It showed women there rated financial services as the industry least sympathetic and understanding of them. They cited a lack of respect, poor advice, contradictory policies and too much red tape.

Singleton surveyed 700 New Zealand women and found most were happy with the quality of service they received from financial institutions here.

But only a little over half the respondents were confident about their own financial decisions.

Although many said they would like advice on their retirement plans, investing and managing debt, only half of those same women had taken such advice. Younger women were more interested and yet less likely to have sought advice.

The women recognised that there were certain life triggers that could require financial advice, but were not always getting it. Those included opening a bank account, starting a family, being promoted at work or getting divorced.

The main barrier to accessing financial advice was that women did not think they had enough money to invest to be of interest to an adviser, they thought it would be too costly, or that a financial adviser would try to sell them products they did not need.

Although women were happy overall with how well financial products and services met their needs, they were not confident about how these actually worked, and many felt investment information in particular could be clearer.

Singleton said a little over half the women surveyed were confident they were making good financial decisions but 10 per cent were not confident and a quarter were neutral. Younger women were less confident.

‘‘There is a real opportunity to encourage more women, especially younger women, to seek professional financial advice to help lift their confidence when it comes to finances.’’

Singleton said women had to tackle the issue of lower KiwiSaver balances – they had on average 30 per cent less money, were more likely to have time out of the workforce, were more vulnerable in a divorce and generally lived longer than men – so their smaller retirement savings pots had to last longer.

Other suggestions from the research on how the industry could do better for women included offering free advice, improving the industry’s understanding of women by asking them, not patronising them, and having more transparency on fees.