Being an active participant in the financial market is an important way of having an influence on society, while laying the foundations for one’s own future. Despite significant progress having been made on equality in Iceland in recent years and decades, the financial market is still not a level playing field for women.
Women invest is long-term campaign which aims to promote investment by women. The foundations for the project were laid in 2023 when Arion Bank decided to highlight the importance of bridging gender disparity in terms of participation in the financial market.
In 2023, the Bank used both official data and its own data to map gender equality on the financial market. In-depth interviews were taken with women in order to identify the barriers faced by women and to see what approach to this topic is needed most. Similar initiatives have been launched in the Nordic countries and have met with great success. After taking a closer look at these initiatives, it was decided to gain more information from DNB Bank in Norway which has done an excellent job with its campaign over the past few years. It was clear from the outset that the approach taken would involve motivation, education and social initiatives.
The campaign was formally launched on 4 January 2024 at a well-attended opening event. This was immediately followed by an advertising campaign, a new website was opened, the first educational events were held, with further ones advertised, and discussion groups were set up. The initiative has got off to a great start and it will be exciting to bring it to fruition and publish the first set of results in a year’s time.
Arion Bank wants to take on a clear role in the journey ahead. The UN Sustainable Development Goal on gender equality represents an unambiguous call for gender equality on the financial market and financial independence for all women.
The ability of people and households to increase their savings and investments depends to some extent on the state of the economy and is therefore highly variable. The goal of the Women invest initiative is to promote equal access to the financial market for both men and women. To achieve this goal, women need to increase their investments more than men.
To this end, quantifiable targets have been set to ensure that the initiative yields the desired results. The targets apply for three years at a time and revolve round motivation, financial learning and closing the gender investing gap. In addition, there are short-term indicators designed to ensure that the initiative is on the right track.
The initiative’s new website contains statistics and detailed information on investment, stimulating interviews with women from the business sector, and an overview of information meetings and events linked to the campaign. A packed programme of events across the country, with information meetings, plus conversations with leading women professionals about the initiative and ways to reach targets all form part of the journey to greater financial independence for women and gender equality in society. See here for further information.
A survey on pensions conducted by Gallup in 2023 revealed that women believe they generally know less about their pensions than men. According to the survey, 44% of women believed they knew little about their pensions, while 34% of men thought their knowledge of their pensions was limited.
Source: Gallup
Women take 26 years longer than men to accumulate sufficient pension savings to not have to rely on payments from the Social Insurance Administration at retirement. According to a survey by the consultancy Talnakönnun, women born in 1984 will not have to rely on pension payments from the Social Insurance Administration. However, men reach this point much earlier, or those born in 1958.
Source: Talnakönnun survey, carried out for National Association of Pension Funds
Momentum in investments by women has been growing, and in recent years women’s financial income, especially in the younger age groups, has been increasing. In 2022, women’s financial income increased by 23% YoY. At the same time men’s financial income grew by 13%. The highest growth rate was among women aged 16-19, up 103%.
Source: Statistics Iceland
In terms of participation in the stock market, the split on Nasdaq Iceland is 70/30 in favour of men. This figure has been virtually unchanged in recent years.
Source: Nasdaq Iceland
Women own 42% of assets in Arion supplementary savings and this figure has increased slightly in recent years. The biggest increase has been in the 19-30 age group, up 3 percentage points since 2019.
Source: Arion Bank
Women have been increasing their securities holdings, but the split remains skewed towards men 70/30. If this continues at the same rate, it will be 70 years before women and men own the same amount in securities.
Source: Arion Bank
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One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted by Arion Bank is Goal Number 5 which is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. A basic requirement for empowering women and girls and ensuring gender quality is to lay the foundations for women’s financial independence. This is underlined in goal 5A which is to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to financial services. A key impetus behind the initiative is to get women to take part in the discourse on investments and pensions. In 2023 Arion Bank arranged or was involved in 10 events for women focusing on investment, pensions and equality.
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