Female Finance: Insights from 4 Swiss Leading Innovators

As we celebrate Women’s International Day, we put the spotlight on the state of personal Female Finance. In collaboration with Dr. Karen Wendt from the Swiss Fintech Ladies Association we curated invaluable insights from four pioneering Swiss companies that are shaping the future of personal female finance in Switzerland.

Switzerland stands as a beacon of financial security and wealth management expertise. However, as Dr. Mahnoosh Mirghaemi, founder of Fintech Colivar, tells us, when it comes to addressing the gender gap in saving and investing, there’s a discernible lag. The Swiss market, much like its counterparts in the DACH region, while offering a plethora of financial products and services, has very few tailored specifically to the needs and challenges faced by women investors.

As challenges persist, we highlight the opportunities and the proposed solutions from the following Swiss companies: Invested.ch, Colivar, Smart Purse, and Umushroom.

Bridging Wealth Gaps with Literacy and Behavioral considerations — A community approach

Invested.ch, under the leadership of Therese Faessler, is on a mission to close wealth gaps with financial literacy. The company is providing an easy, transparent, and trustworthy platform which highlights the importance of understanding risk and mitigating loss. Therese is working with high schools all over Switzerland by way of iconomix.ch, the SNB’s economic educational platform.

Therese emphasizes the need to stop addressing women as uneducated men. Women have a different intrinsic understanding of values, other than financial reward alone.

Women care not only about their financial resilience, but about society’s overall resilience. Providers targeting women must stop addressing women based on stereotype weaknesses.

Therese suggests separating financial literacy into four quadrants: Handling Money, handling debt, insurance, and capital creation.

Actionable suggestions from invested.ch:

• Without addressing saving, debt management and risk, encouraging the uninvested to start investing is negligent, says Therese Faessler. Paying exorbitant fees for investment education before becoming literate in the other 3 areas defeats the purpose of striving toward income and wealth equality.
• Find a community for support and commitment reinforcement. The community’s goal should be for all its members to become financially resilient by way of saving, paying off debt, insurance and lastly, investing wisely.
• Look for gender focused finance providers that focus on female strengths such as:

—Investing with a higher purpose

—An objective view of their own investing abilities

—A balanced risk assessment

—A focus on long-term goals

Redefining Wealth Management for Women through tailored investment products and flexible policies

Colivar Gestion AG, founded in 1991 and led by Dr. Mahnoosh Mirghaemi, is redefining wealth management with a women-first approach. By offering tailored investment strategies and personalized solutions, Colivar is bridging the gaps in women`s finance. The company’s commitment to treating each woman as an individual beyond mere numbers, and its focus on aligning investments with personal values, demonstrate a deep understanding of the unique financial needs and aspirations of women. Furthermore, Colivar is distinguished by holding a FINMA license as an asset manager, thereby providing its clients with the added advantage of FINMA oversight.

The recent reforms in the Swiss `Social Security` system are a great first step to strengthen the security of retirees and specifically women. But Dr. Mirghaemi believes that much more needs to be done.

Actionable suggestions from Colivar:

• Targeted Financial Products and Services: There’s a critical need for financial products that cater specifically to the career and life trajectories of women. These products could include more flexible pension plans that account for career breaks and part-time work, as well as investment funds that focus on sectors where women-led businesses thrive.
• Financial Literacy and Education: Enhancing financial literacy among women through workshops, seminars, and online resources can empower them to make informed decisions about saving, investing, and retirement planning. Countries like Australia have successfully implemented national strategies to improve women’s financial literacy, which could serve as a model for Switzerland.

Democratizing Financial & Unbiased Education — Building Trust & Measuring

SmartPurse, co-founded by Olga Miler in 2019, is a leading platform for inclusive financial education and planning. By making finances fun and accessible for all, especially women, SmartPurse is addressing the need for unbiased financial education for specific audiences: women, young people, elderly and welcomes men as allies. The platform’s innovative approach to engaging employers and financial service providers in developing financial education experiences is core for building financial resilience for everyone, especially women.

SmartPurse emphasizes the importance of independent financial education and the need for political reforms to support unbiased financial literacy.

Olga Miler highlights the BNY Mellon study (The pathway to inclusive investing [1] ) from 2021 that shows an alarming statistic: 73% of asset managers admit that their financial products are being built for men. And while the financial industry keeps publishing research on the female investing gap and some commit to better their service provision by starting initiatives which are posted and boasted about, but only then vanish silently 6–12 months later. At the same time, women are being targeted and sold expensive financial education courses (3.000 Francs per course (really!)) or seemingly female-tailored investment products by both men and women. One could say that female-investing washing is another danger.

Actionable suggestions from Smart Purse:

• Trust in financial education: There should be clear labeling of what qualifies for impartial education and what for marketing. Mixing both financial education content and investment products by one player is at best content marketing, not unbiased education!
• `What gets measured gets done` said management guru Peter Drucker: We need to measure the state of play of financial literacy with a consistent “index” and then put in place vehicles that allow for independent financial education — at scale for men and women.

Pioneering Financial Education and Community Building

UMushroom, founded in 2020 by Dr. Luba Schoenig and Tonia Zimmermann, is a financial and educational platform that aims to demystify the investment world for its users.

With a focus on empowering beginners through financial education, UMushroom is addressing the critical gap in financial literacy among women in Switzerland.

They emphasize the need for empowering role models and leading by example.

The platform’s emphasis on community building, where users can rate, comment, and follow peers and professional investors, fosters a supportive environment for women to gain confidence in their investment capabilities.

The company highlights a significant gender pension gap in Switzerland, with women receiving on average 37% less pension than men, which translates to about CHF 20,000 less per year.

Actionable suggestions from UMuschroom:

• Start investing each month a certain portion of your available wealth in ETFs. You can start with as little as 50 or 100 CHF per month.
• Don’t be fooled by the illusion of the perfect timing to enter the market. Remember: time in the market beats market timing. So invest regularly, each month for example, to average out market ups and market dips.

The insights from these innovators highlight several key themes for the future of female finance in Switzerland and elsewhere:

- There’s a unanimous agreement on the need for enhanced financial literacy among women. Tailored educational programs (value for money), platforms and policies that empower women to make informed financial decisions. Unbiased financial education is the North star.

- Building Communities where women can share experiences, learn from each other, and find mentorship is vital for boosting confidence and participation in financial markets.

- Personalized Financial Solutions recognizing the unique financial journeys of women but also their unique behaviors and values, are needed. These solutions again must be value for money and not just marketing lip service.

Of course, the devil is in the detail as the four Swiss leaders have brilliantly shared with us.

[1] The pathway to inclusive investing https://im.bnymellon.com/content/im/us/en.html

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