A women-only bank, for encouraging women’s economic independence, among other things. That’s the promise of a newly-founded Swiss bank, whose aim is to bring women closer to the world of finance, offering them investment assistance and financial education.
Amortisation plans, bills, foreign currency wire transfers and investments: such terms are usually part of a ‘masculine’ vocabulary, but it’s time for women to use them regularly too. We all know that personal income is part of the process that can lead to gender equality, but so far no bank had considered offering assistance on the matter.
So, Switzerland – the land of watches, chocolate and bank accounts – is the first country to consider this aspect. Here too, gender discrimination (pay gap, above all) is a reality. Thousands of women are paid on average 18.7% less than their male peers for the same job. Finance is a sector that mainly involves men (only 10% of women employees hold managerial offices in the major Swiss banks), and very few women decide to autonomously invest their money.
This is why the newly founded online bank decided to offer consulting services for a set of very diverse users, who haven’t been represented much: married women, divorced women, widows, transgender, gender-fluid, with or without children, employees, businesswomen or unemployed. The bank offers all of them not just banking services, but also investment assistance, financial planning and education, through updated interactive analyses and community support that – via anonymous chat lines and customised content – bring women closer to the world of finance.
It’s a way to iron out gender inequality and to make women more aware of their working and financial skills. We reckon it’s about time, fifty years after women were granted the right to vote (something that, in Switzerland, was converted into law only in 1971).
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