THE IMPACT OF GENDER ON THE PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING (PFP) PROCESS Should financial advisors tailor their process

to the gender of the client?

INTRODUCTION It is widely recognized that women have been growing in financial importance in recent decade. The impact of gender on financial decision-making in general and on the investment process specifically has been of increasing interest to both researches and practitioners. This author believe that effective financial advisor should consider tailoring the PFP process to the gender of the client in order to better meet the client needs.

FINDINGS Female client tend to be more detail oriented, they tend to want to read more and understand financial matters better and they ask more question than male clients. Male client generally exhibit more confident when dealing with their financial affairs, and tend to be more comfortable investing using Internet and investing by phone than face-toface approach. Female client tend to be more interested in long-term relationship with their financial advisor based upon communication, mutual understanding and trust, whereas male client are more likely to judge the quality of the relationship with their financial advisor based upon investment performance. Female client invest their pension money more conservatively than men. Male took more risks even when it was clear that it was a bad idea to take risk, female more disinclined to take risk even when it was good to do that. Female client tend more information and tend to want to understand the big picture associated with the plan. Male investors as compared to female investor have more tendency to act on hot tips impulsive behaviour that can cause them to lose substantial amount of money Male demonstrate greater efficiency of information processing within low complexity task setting than did female, and less efficiency of information processing in high complexity setting than female did.

Female investor tends to be less confident in their financial decision-making and more prone to worry about their investment than male. Final stage are more critical when dealing with female client than male clients, since female client tend to be prone to experiencing more doubt and worry about their financial affairs.

CONCLUSION The above finding clearly established the fact that the women and men tend to look at the issue of money and financial affair very differently. It also states that women tend to look at money as a pool while men look at money more as a stream. Women tend to be more risk averse while men tend to be less risk averse. Because of this finding, this author believe that financial advising can be done more effectively if the PFP process used recognizes the significant gender differences .Author also intent to encourage financial advisor to critically examine the process that they use to advise their client in light of the gender literature.

THE PERSONAL FINANCIAL PLANNING PROCESS

START

STAGE 1 Gather Data

STAGE 2 Establish Financial Goals and

Objectives

STAGE 3 Process and Analyze Information

STAGE 4 Recommended a Comprehensive Financial Plan

STAGE 5 Implement the Plan

STAGE 6 Monitor the Plan