The Purse

Women’s growing economic power and how the financial services industry needs to change. Listen to the podcast interview with Sarah Courtney Dockett

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Women’s growing economic power and how the financial services industry needs to change. Listen to the podcast interview with Sarah Courtney Dockett

Jana Hlistova

Oct 22, 2023

Welcome to our #209 weekly newsletter.

“For women taking control of their financial future”

-Jana Hlistova

From The Purse

In this week’s newsletter, we spotlight a short extract from The Purse Podcast interview with Sarah Courtney Dockett, who is Managing Director for Citi Private Bank, Women in Wealth for EMEA.

We talk about women’s growing economic power, how the financial services industry needs to change, female entrepreneurship and women’s relationship with money.

Listen to the full interview here.

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And you can review the news in brief so you stay on top of global financial, economic and investing trends.

I hope you enjoy this week’s newsletter.

Until next week,

Jana

Women’s growing economic power and how the financial services industry needs to change

We interviewed Sarah Courtney Dockett, Managing Director at Citi Private Bank, Women in Wealth for EMEA on The Purse Podcast.

We interviewed Sarah Courtney Dockett on The Purse Podcast.

Sarah is Managing Director for Citi Private Bank, Head of Women in Wealth, EMEA. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion.

Sarah is also a Senior Private Banker in the UK Ultra High Net Worth Team based in London. She is responsible for managing 30 client and Family Office relationships. While they may be resident in the UK, Sarah’s clients span the globe and she has a specialism in dealing with US connected clients. Sarah has 23 years of experience working with Private Clients, 12 of which she has spent with Citi.

In the podcast interview we talk about: why money continues to be a taboo topic (especially in the UK), women’s growing economic power, the financial services industry and what needs to change, investing in female founders and more+

Below is a short extract from the interview.

Jana: “How do you think the financial services industry needs to prepare for this mindset shift, which is obviously from the male customer to the female customer?

We've seen the research, we know the financial services deems the default customer to be male. They've spent very little time thinking about the female customer (although this is changing now, of course). I guess I'm curious…why is it taking such a long time to change?”

Sarah Courtney Dockett’s response:

I think it's taking a long time because…wealth management has been such a male dominated endeavour.

Most of the financial advisors were men. Most of the decision makers where men. The recent study I quoted was that two thirds of affluent households, men are still the key decision makers.

So it's just been because of who are the people in the industry and who are making the decisions. But a woman has the same need and right to access financial resources as men do. I think where the industry needs to wake up is that due to a number of differences, psychological, cultural, societal and so on.

Women will approach problem solving and assess products in different ways. For example, it's a common misconception that women are not risk takers and men are more aggressive with their investment decisions. I have often found my female clients tend to ask more questions than my male clients, but this is merely to ensure they actually understand the proposition in detail before they proceed.

Many women report lower financial self-confidence.
What was quite interesting in the McKinsey study is only one quarter of affluent women say they're comfortable making investment and saving related decisions on their own. And that's 15 percentage points lower than their male counterparts.
Therefore, that's why I think it's important advisors do a better job of helping women meet their goals and build trust in their own financial literacy.

Roughly half of all female financial decision makers say they feel unprepared for their financial goals despite having a financial advisor. So even those women that do have an advisor, only 50% say they feel prepared. So we really do have a long way to go.

And I think advisors and the wealth management community need to bear in mind that women really do have a greater focus on real life goals.

Yes, of course, they'd be delighted to outperform the stock market, but planning for retirement, health, not being a burden on the family in later years. Their children and giving back to society are all really, really important.

I'll quote a study here in the UK from Wealthier Report in 2019. Women told us exactly what they want from their financial services:

more openness, more education, personalised service, access to networks. And more women in finance…

Listen to the full interview here.

Financial news

Looks like we are back in the pre-2009 days in the bond market. The MOVE volatility index – a kind of VIX Index for bonds – has been at elevated levels for weeks.
China has cut its holdings in US Treasuries to $805bn, the lowest level since 2009.
UK 30 year bond yield rises to highest since 1998. And The iShares 20+ year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) now down 51% from ATH.
Greece has to pay less than the US for 10 year bonds. The markets had already priced in the return of Greece to investment-grade status.
The Eurozone’s next crisis is already approaching in Italy. 10 year risk spread over German bunds have spiked >200bps. Debt ratio of 140% of GDP is a real challenge for a ‘sub-sovereign’ borrower that no longer prints its own currency.
The UK’s FTSE 250 index has dropped to a new one-year low.
UK inflation stays higher than expected after oil price jump. CPI rises 6.7% in September, the same pace as previous month. UK 10 year yields jump by 7bps to 4.58%.
World's banks earned $1.3tn in 2022, in the best period for global banking overall since at least 2007, acc to McKinsey. Estimate for 2023 profits, at $1.4tn, is even higher.
Returns this year in the S&P500 have been driven entirely by returns in 7 biggest stocks, and these 7 stocks have become more and more overvalued
Record US stock ownership: the share of American households that own stock either in mutual funds, retirement accounts, or as individual shares hit a new high in 2022 at 58%.