Interview with Patricia Rodríguez, our Financial Markets and Consumer Protection advisor, in Citywire on the occasion of International Women’s Day.
Attracting women to the financial advisory profession still seems to be a major challenge; what do you believe can be done to attract, develop, and retain female talent?
Work-life balance measures undoubtedly help both men and women so that no one has to give up their professional career. This is the direction in which we must move forward with determination.
Women tend to prefer working with female financial advisors, and some research also finds that women who use female advisors have more confidence in their investment skills and are more likely to say that their advisor has their best interests at heart. Do you agree? Yes / No. Why?
The financial advisory profession is highly regulated and professional standards are very high. The important thing is for clients to know that their advisor has sufficient training to understand their needs. The preference for being served by a man or a woman is a very personal matter that depends on each individual.
Women are expected, thanks in part to greater longevity, to control more wealth and, at some point in their lives, may be the sole financial decision-makers for their households, likely becoming the most sought-after clients:
Should the advisory industry be more pragmatic and capitalize on these trends by encouraging more women to join the industry and close the gender gap?
The increased longevity of the population and the need for retirement planning is an issue of growing relevance. Household consumption decisions have traditionally been made by women, so they are very accustomed to it. It is important to convey the need for long-term planning to the population, and for this, the industry and clients must collaborate very closely.
As far as the gender gap is concerned, the trend is changing and we are seeing more and more women in the financial advisory sector.
Conversely, why do male clients seem to prefer male financial advisors, and what are the challenges to reversing this trend?
The important thing is the training of professionals in the sector and confidence in the quality of their knowledge and experience.
What is the AEB doing in this regard? And what is needed to make the financial advisory profession more gender-balanced?
The AEB supports and promotes all measures that the sector is adopting in relation to work-life balance. Among our members, sensitivity in this area is increasingly high.
In the long term, financial education for consumers is fundamental, not only to open up their career path possibilities but also to raise public awareness about the need for proper financial planning for the future.
In this area, the idea is emphasized that with the same effort and training, girls and boys will be able to access the same jobs.
What role will women play in the financial planning industry in the future? And moving forward, where do you think the challenges will be and why? Finally, what is your greatest fear?
Undoubtedly, women will play a very important role and, in a more socially conscious society, under the same conditions as their colleagues and without ‘glass ceilings’. The challenge is to continue advancing in this line of work-life balance and equality, as well as in professional training and the subsequent access to positions of greater responsibility. The greatest fear would be that this process of progress we are experiencing suffers some setback or standstill. We are optimistic and do not believe this will happen. More and more women are working in the financial planning industry.
Patricia Rodríguez, Financial Markets advisor.
