Wall Street is taking a bashing in the populist presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump this election cycle.
So it's not surprising to find that some three-quarters of women in a new survey believe Wall Street does not have consumers' best interests at heart, and give the financial services industry a grade of C or worse for how they explain saving and investing.
Indeed, 91% of women in the poll felt that financial firms' materials were more about selling to consumers than educating them, and 87% felt that Wall Street's jargon made investing seem more confusing than it should be.
WorthFM (Worth Financial Management LLC), a new digital money management platform for women set to launch in the spring, released the survey results on Thursday in conjunction with Tiller, an advocacy marketing firm with a specialty in women's financial issues.
The online survey, which was conducted in late December by Pollara Strategic Insights, comprised 1,501 women at least 18 years old across all 50 states.
Eighty-four percent of respondents said they were, are or expected to solely manage their finances, and 89% said they were involved with their household's investment decisions.
That engagement could be limited, the survey found. Forty-four percent of women — and more than half of millennials — said they had not been actively involved in investment, their 401(k) excepted.
Still, women expressed strong commitment to ensuring their own and their families' financial well-being. And 70% said they wanted to be a financial role model for their children.
"Women know how important it is to get their finances right, and they value financial competence as a key factor to a happy life," Amanda Steinberg, founder of DailyWorth, a financial media company for women, and chief executive of WorthFM, said in a statement.
"But it's also clear that traditional providers of investment products and advice are perceived as coming up well short of the mark."
Barriers to Engagement
Lack of know-how was the main barrier preventing women from becoming more engaged in the investing process. Forty-eight percent of women surveyed did not consider themselves knowledgeable about investing, and 63% said investing was confusing.
