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UBS Female Financial Advisors Take On Challenging Trends among Women in Investing
[June 13, 2018]

UBS Female Financial Advisors Take On Challenging Trends among Women in Investing


In UBS's first Florida Gulf Coast Women's Leadership Retreat held in Sarasota, female financial advisors and wealth management professionals learned firsthand of the challenges their industry faces in advising women in investment and long-term financial matters.

Head of Women Strategic Client Segment for UBS Carey Shuffman spoke in detail on women and wealth, and how female clients are indeed reshaping the industry. However, this opportunity does not come without its challenges. While the women's movement is strong on political and business fronts, UBS has uncovered daunting statistics on women and their relationship with money. According to a proprietary report recently commissioned and published by UBS titled "Own Your Worth", women are abdicating their role in financial decisions because they dramatically underestimate their own capabilities while overestimating what is required to be financially involved.



According to the report, 56 percent of women in couples still willingly leave investing and long-term financial decisions to their spouses, and more than 80 percent of women and men think that's okay. Furthermore, 59 percent of divorcees and widows regret not being more involved in long-term financial decisions, and 98 percent of divorcees and widows would advise other women to take an active role in their finances now.

According to Shuffman, these beliefs among women should not be surprising. "Until 1981, state laws gave husbands unilateral control of jointly owned property," she said.


Alarmingly, the UBS study also reports that 61 percent of millennial women (a 5 percent increase over their more mature counterparts) are more likely to leave major financial decisions to their spouse. However there is hope, which brought the discussion back full circle to the real purpose of the Women's Leadership Retreat: empowering women to take an active role in their own advisory business and in investment and long-term financial decisions in general.

The UBS report outlines three actions: first, women should calculate their net worth and outline their needs for the short-term, life-time and their legacy. Second, women should find their voice and honestly discuss finances with their spouse. Third, women should set an example for the next generation.


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