Despite the gender gap, millennial women are as confident as men about achieving financial goals.
MONTREAL, March 7, 2019 /CNW Telbec/ - The 2nd Annual Report on the Saving and Investing Habits of Women and Men from Canadian fintech Mylo shows that Canadian women are as confident as men about achieving their financial goals, despite earning 14 per cent less than their male counterparts.
Women listed "increasing income" (27 per cent) and "reducing debt" (22 per cent) as top factors when asked what made them feel more confident about their financial situation.
The report explores Canadians' financial behaviour and attitudes to advance the conversation about gender disparity and promote financial equality.
"We created Mylo to ensure that all Canadians have the same opportunities to achieve their financial goals. It's clear that there is still a glaring gender gap in our country. We can't expect that to change unless we all take responsibility to understand its cause and take significant action,"
said Mylo's CEO and founder Philip Barrar. "We're encouraged by the progress that we've seen among women using Mylo, but there's still a lot of work to be done."
The report also shows that the difference between the financial goal targets set by women and men using the Mylo app has narrowed by 12 per cent when compared to data from last year. This suggests there may be a narrowing of the gender gap among Mylo users, since goal setting is an important lever in long-term earnings.
The report outlines the approach Mylo took to building a more inclusive product and communications strategy that would directly address the needs of Canadian women. For example, in response to requests by women for socially responsible investment options, they created the Mylo SRI fund, which invests in companies that have gender-diverse leadership teams, among other social investment philosophies.
As a result of Mylo's focus on inclusivity, their female user base has quadrupled in a year. When measured as a percentage of their total user base, this is 55 per cent higher than the industry benchmark for women's adoption of investing apps.
"Women are half of the market and make or influence 80 per cent of household purchasing decisions, but they're not well served by the investment community," said Jennifer McDonald, Chief Operating Officer at Mylo. "There is a role for financial service providers to wake up to this important opportunity. Not only is this our ethical responsibility, but it's simply good business. This means making a commitment to understanding women's priorities and meeting their expectations. "
Mylo's report looked at an anonymized sample of over 86,000 users and included a survey of 1,500 women and 1,000 men.
Additional data points:
- Women rate their confidence in achieving financial goals at 6.3 on 10.
They scored the same as men, suggesting the gap may be closing in terms of confidence. - The disparity in confidence between women and men was most notable in Winnipeg (women were +18 per cent more confident), Vancouver (+7 per cent), and Calgary (+6 per cent).
- Women are more likely to look to Mylo as a tool for paying their debt and investing socially.
When asked how Mylo could help beyond saving and investing, 60 per cent of women responded "Pay off Debt," making them 33 per cent more likely than men to choose this answer. One in five women listed "Socially Responsible Investing," a response chosen 33 per cent more frequently than men.
See the full report here.
To learn more about Mylo, visit mylo.ai.
Social media links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getmylo
Twitter: https://twitter.com/getmylo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getmylo/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10842490/
The Roundup Magazine: https://magazine.mylo.ai
Jobs @ Mylo: https://mylo.breezy.hr/
About Mylo Financial Technologies
Mylo is the investing app designed to help Canadians achieve their financial goals by rounding up their purchases and investing the spare change. Spend $3.25 on a coffee and Mylo rounds that up to $4.00 and invests the $0.75 in a fully-managed, diversified investment portfolio. Mylo makes investing affordable and accessible for all Canadians, regardless of how much money they have or their level of investing knowledge or experience. With the recent launch of Advantage, Mylo now offers Canadians access to socially responsible investing options through the Mylo SRI Fund.
SOURCE Mylo
Mylo Financial Technologies Inc., Reinaldo Calcaño, Marketing & Communications Manager, [email protected], 1 514 803 9437
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