Why we need more women in financial advice

Women make up less than a third of the Financial Planning Association’s (FPA) membership base, the group’s annual report showed.

As of 30 June, just 28 per cent of the FPA’s 10,954 members were women.

Late last year, the FPA launched its FPA Women in Financial Planning program to sharpen the organisation’s focus for attracting more women into the profession.

At the time, former CEO, Dante De Gori said: “The FPA is thrilled to launch the program to encourage and support women in financial planning.”

“Women account for around 20 per cent of financial planners and 27 per cent of the FPA membership. Further, the demand for female financial planners is there, so encouraging more women to enter and remain in the profession will be vital to serving the needs of the growing number of Australians seeking advice.”

According to Adviser Ratings, women made up 22 per cent of financial advisers at the start of this year, with that number declining steadily since it reached a high of nearly 25 per cent in 2018.

At the same time, the number of advisers on the Financial Advice Register has dropped to 15,895 as of 3 November 2022, down 1,274 over the last year.

Speaking to ifa on a recent podcast, Tracey Sofra, CEO of WOW Women’s Group, explained that increasing women's representation in the industry would have a positive flow on effect on the number of women seeking financial advice.

“The wealth in female hands now is enormous and growing,” Ms Sofra said.

In fact, according to data, 60 per cent of the UK's wealth will be in female hands by 2025, while in Western Europe as a whole, women’s assets are projected to grow at roughly 8.1 percent CAGR to 2030.

In Australia, women continue to be short-changed but according to Ms Sofra, their time is coming.

“The number of girls going through Uni is exceeding boys. The number of women entrepreneurs and businesses starters are exceeding men. It's growing at a pace that we've never seen before. The wealth in female hands is enormous and therefore their knowledge around how to handle that money is incredibly important,” she noted.

A part of the FPA Women in Financial Planning program, Ms Sofra explained why she is a particularly vocal advocate for women in advice.

“We gather often and talk about how we can improve this and how we can improve the numbers.

“I've always been an advocate for more women in financial planning, simply because as a female financial adviser, I feel and I know through my own experience, that we have a side to us as women that is very in tune with the profession. We have obviously the caring side, and the compassionate side, and the nurturing side.

“And I feel that that's an incredible benefit to be able to sit in front of clients and to be able to nurture them through the process. It's quite different. Not quite, it's very different.”

To hear more from Tracey Sofra, click here.