Trends in Wealth Management: The Female Perspective w/ Chantal McNeily

In our most recent podcast with Chantal McNeily, Investment and Wealth Advisor at RBC Dominion Securities, we discuss the unique challenges women face when it comes to managing our finances and achieving financial security.

Key Insight #1

It is no secret that women face a number of factors that make it harder to get there: we still earn less (87 cents on the dollar compared to men), take more time off to care for family, and live longer. What I did not appreciate though, is this important trend: privately held wealth for Canadian women has been growing rapidly and is moving towards representing approximately 50% of total wealth in Canada.

Another important stat Chantal highlighted is that 80% of women leave their husband’s advisor within one year of his passing. Financial advisors and wealth management firms need to be asking themselves how they are adapting their service models and approach to investing to ensure it is resonating with women!

Key Insight #2

We had an interesting discussion about the fact that even though women save at the same rate as men, we invest less because more assets are deployed in conservative liquid investments. According to Chantal, one of the reasons behind this phenomenon is that only 48% women (compared to 68% of men) believe they have enough knowledge about investing to choose an investment that is suitable for their circumstances. In last week’s post, I highlighted wealth management firms need to take a different approach with women and the data above suggests that approaching the investment allocation and suitability discussion is no exception.

Click here to listen to our entire conversation on our podcast, "LockDocs Presents", or find us on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.