3 March 2022
As we recognise International Women’s Day on March 8, we celebrate all our wāhine at Cambridge Partners, but we’d like to shine a particular light on our female Financial Advisers.
Three Advisers in our team are women who bring a depth of experience, knowledge, and empathy that provides an additional perspective to financial advice. It’s important that we establish strong connections with all our clients. Our female advisers are all Mums, running busy households, balancing family commitments along with their own careers, and these characteristics are relatable to many women seeking financial advice for their own situations.
Often our clients face transitions in life, with work, family, or relationships. Having a Financial Adviser they trust and relate to is important. Our Advisers work with clients to understand their tolerance for investment risk and financial goals, then make a robust plan that can help achieve them. Goals can be short, medium, or long-term, and Advisers use many tools, such as diversification, where they use a diverse range of assets in the portfolio. It’s never too late to start planning for your financial future; whether you’re in your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s or 60’s, we can help you set goals so you may have the lifestyle you want at retirement. Have you thought about what that might look like?
As a company, we understand the various challenges that women face, such as the Motherhood Penalty, which is the difference between the gender pay gap for parents versus non-parents, and how it affects women at retirement. In general terms, women put career ambitions on hold to raise children, often returning to work seeking part-time or flexible roles which typically pay less. The Motherhood Penalty and the gender pay gap can contribute to women being in a worse position than men when it comes to retirement. Gender research conducted by the University of Auckland’s Public Policy Institute (Huang & Curtin, 2019) reported twice as many women as men in New Zealand will retire in poverty. This is a huge concern for us as a financial advisory firm, but we want to assure women that these issues can be overcome, and we encourage anyone to speak to our expert team of Financial Advisers.
Financial Wellbeing
A recent study on women and financial wellbeing, conducted by the Financial Services Council in 2021, found that ‘over 80% of women rate their financial wellbeing moderate, low, or very low’ and ‘62% of women don’t feel prepared for retirement’.
At Cambridge Partners, we want to bridge the knowledge gap to raise financial wellbeing for women and all Kiwi. To do this, we created a financial capability programme, Understanding Your Money, that follows the National Strategy for Financial Capability developed by Te Ara Ahunga Ora Retirement Commission. The development of the programme has been driven by the need from our clients, their children, and beneficiaries of trusts, to have a better understanding of the fundamentals around money. Our programme focuses on understanding behaviours and attitudes towards money and gives people the tools and resources to make more informed financial decisions. We focus on starting conversations about money by building a network of like-minded people that are on the journey with you. There are many key areas that are covered, from goal setting and budgeting to good debt versus bad debt. We demystify technical investment terms and provide some tips and hacks to help people become more confident with money.
This programme will be available to all clients in April, and you can register your interest by clicking the button below.
Financial Capability Programme: Understanding Your Money
By increasing financial capability, we can increase overall financial wellbeing, and this benefits our community, Aotearoa and generations that follow.
If you ever have any questions about financial wellbeing, you can raise them with your trusted Adviser at your next meeting or send us an email to info@cambridgepartners.co.nz.
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Financial Services Council. (2021). Money & You: Women and Financial Wellbeing in New Zealand. Auckland: Financial Services Council; https://f.hubspotusercontent10.net/hubfs/7422267/FSC%20Corporate/Research%20Reports/PC13583%20Money%20%20You%20Women%20and%20Finance_FINAL.pdf.
Huang, Y., & Curtin, J. (2019). A Review of Gender . Auckland : University of Auckland Public Policy Institute, https://cdn.auckland.ac.nz/assets/auckland/arts/our-research/research-institutes-centres-groups/ppi/ppi-reports/Ak-Uni-PPI-Gender-Pension-Gap-Report.pdf.