FinEdge Women Investor Study 2023

41.68% of the clients FinEdge onboarded in 2023 were women, against roughly 18% in 2012, the year FinEdge began operations. Participation was strongest in the West and North zones and weakest in the East.

Children’s education and Retirement together dominated the goal mix. Both are long-dated, non-negotiable goals — the kind where the cost of stopping is highest and the value of staying invested compounds most. Retirement emerging as a near-equal priority marks a shift in how women approach their own financial independence rather than only the family’s obligations.

Women invested a marginally higher average monthly SIP amount. They held a slightly lower share of long-term money in equity-oriented SIPs. They planned for slightly fewer goals, and they were slightly younger on average — 38.67 years against 40.34 years for men. None of these gaps is large; taken together, they describe two cohorts investing in substantially the same way.

Women investors stopped their SIPs at a rate 19% lower than men. In goal-based investing this is the behaviour that decides outcomes. A plan does not usually fail because the wrong fund was chosen; it fails because contributions stopped during a period when continuing was uncomfortable — which is why FinEdge treats staying invested as a process discipline, covered in investing best practices.

Alongside the client data, FinEdge ran detailed feedback sessions with the investment experts who manage investments for women clients. Five challenges came up consistently:

• Career breaks taken for maternity or to care for elderly parents
• Excessive risk aversion that holds them back from inflation-beating returns
• A lack of trust in sales-driven advisors who are revenue-centric rather than relationship-centric
• A lack of awareness of concepts like compounding, rupee cost averaging and the time value of money
• A lack of confidence, because traditionally the men of the family have managed the finances

The same feedback sessions surfaced what women consistently valued in how their investing is managed:

• Trustworthiness and reliability
• A non-sales-centric approach
• A goal-based investing platform that is not complicated
• Handholding by an investment expert willing to explain the nuances of investing
• Empathy, sensitivity and customisation

Taken together, these describe an investing relationship that is explained rather than sold — the reason FinEdge combines an investment expert with a structured platform instead of relying on either alone.