Callum Jones March 24, 2023 | 3.49pm

Women are being underserviced by financial advice, but there are plenty of simple solutions to help improve the gender imbalance, according to a panel discussion.

Speaking on a recent webinar hosted by Netwealth about empowering female clients, Verse Wealth financial adviser Ellie Fordham started a podcast to discuss basic money tips.

“The mechanics of money are easy to teach once you get it,” she said.

“The fact is that if we don’t get the mindset, right, we actually haven’t got an awareness of what those thoughts and beliefs are when it comes to our finances. And that’s a lot to do with our confidence.”

Fordham said she started building a financial literacy course after creating the podcast.

“I’m in a beta launch at the moment where I have students and tightening everything up before I take it to market,” she said.

Last month, Netwealth released the third version of the Advisable Australian Report ‘Women as the new face of wealth’ report last month, which found the nation’s 1.6 million emerging affluent women are being underserviced.

Fordham was motivated to start the course because she was unsatisfied with the progress being made to close the gender wealth gap.

“Women need this financial knowledge,” she said. “That’s my motivating reason [for creating the podcast and course].”

The fortunate ones

Ladies Finance Club founder Molly Benjamin, who recently published a book called Girls Just Wanna Have Funds, was not always good with money.

“I always had a surplus of money,” she said.

“Money would come in, money would go out; I had no savings, I had no investments. I was working a good corporate job, so good times. But I knew something had to change, so I started educating myself more.”

While she educated herself, Benjamin was inspired to take others on the journey with her.

“I was like, ‘If I don’t know this, and my girlfriends don’t know this, and the women I’m working with don’t know this, who does?’ I decided to share the knowledge, put it in a book, make it super fun,” she said.

“It can be fun, because when it is done right, it is fun. It’s exciting. It’s empowering. It doesn’t have to be this really overwhelming, nauseating thing that we’re ashamed and guilty and embarrassed by.”

‘Subconscious self-sabotage’

Rekab Advice director and financial adviser Amie Baker said everyone wants to be financially successful, but we often lack confidence, or there’s an issue “going on underneath”.

“It’s sort of the subconscious programming that’s going on; fifty-three per cent of females worry about money daily,” she said.