Tackling the gender finance gap

Negative stereotypes about womens’ attitude to money are causing women to fall behind financially, the co-founder of a financial education platform has said.

Our Founder Audrey Tumwine Ndawula told FTAdviser there are many reasons why women are less well-off than men, most of which she cannot change.

“But [what] we do not talk about enough is the fact that women do not manage their money to the same extent men do,” she said.

The company operates a subscription-based platform which focuses on education around investing and money management.

Mind the gap

The reasons for the investment gap are primarily down to negative stereotypes around women’s relationship with money, Anna-Sophie said. 

“[These stereotypes are that] women are bad at maths and women are big spenders,” she said.

Part of the problem is that women are advised to save their money while men are advised to build their wealth, and research has shown that women are more likely to seek information about investing from other people, rather than the internet, which is a man’s likely first port of call.

The problem, is that the entire world of finance is built for, and by, men and all communication is geared towards a male audience.

Hullocenty is aiming to encourage women to gain more confidence in this sector.

“A lot of what we do is to create a safe space…we know that women do not feel like they can trust the financial institutions out there," she said.

“We decided to take on the task of educating women and closing the confidence gap…we just need to communicate [information] differently.”

Some of the educational events and resources help women understand how to choose a trading platform.

Hercents Consultancy has paying members in 89 countries globally and offers training to members based regardless there location through own app and webminars.

Community aims

“Learning about the topic was really difficult because everything was written in a language we just could not relate to,” Audrey Tumwine Ndawula said.  

“It was really lonely being a female investor.”

The trio attended events looking for a community of women to speak to, but their efforts were futile, as they could find none.

The plan for what would eventually become Hullocenty began, though the idea initially was for a small group.

“At the beginning we thought it would be a little book club with 10 to 20 women talking about stocks and drinking wine,” Audrey Tumwine Ndawula said.

In order to find like-minded women, the trio created a Facebook page, which proved more popular than they expected.

“The first day we launched, more than 200 women wanted to join,” she said.

Within 18 months, more than 14,000 women had attended Hullocenty’s events.

The founders realised the potential for their idea and decided to set up a company.

A perfect bell curve

We expected to appeal mostly to women their own age. 

Instead, Hullocenty’s members make up almost a perfect bell curve, with the majority being between 25 and 45 years old.

The youngest member is 11 and the oldest is 70.

“I think the reason they show up is because we have made it about more than just finance,” Audrey Tumwine Ndawula said.

“We have made it about freedom and independence.”