As a child I loved to hear Three Wheels on My Wagon played by Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart on Junior Choice. It told the story of a wagon train being pursued by Cherokees.
I was particularly amused by the line that a woman cries: “George! They’re catching up to us.” George’s response is: “Get back in the wagon woman!”
This is a roundabout way of getting to a Fidelity International report on women and pensions.
The report suggests that women’s poor pension provisions are not just down to historical factors such as different working patterns. Women, it asserts, tend to be less engaged with their finances and more risk-averse.
But is this just a stereotype to justify the financial industry’s lack of attention to women?
I come from a background where women have been engaged with money. When I joined Money Mail the editor, Margaret Stone, was one of a number of women editing personal finance sections.
And for as long as I have been writing, Sylvia Morris has provided unparalleled insight on investment and savings.
My mum – a widow with four children – had a firm grip on our family finances. My daughter-in-law, rather than my stepson, appears to have the tighter grip on the cash. However, I admit she is severely risk-averse.
Perhaps part of the answer is that the world of financial services is still dominated by men.
The world of financial services is still dominated by menIn the US the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine have published articles bemoaning the lack of female financial planners.
Financial advice should on the face of it be a fantastic career for people of both sexes and all backgrounds.
It should be able to cope with flexible working and career patterns.
Yet there is still a 39.5 per cent gender pay gap in financial services according to the report Empowering Productivity: Harnessing the Talents of Women in Financial Services, led by Jayne-Anne Gadhia, chief executive of Virgin Money.
The Women in Finance charter is an attempt to get more women beyond middle management.
Perhaps the lack of women is more to do with the historic attitudes in some firms that promoted aggressive selling over a more holistic advice approach.
Does it take a woman to advise a woman? Of course not. But the lack of senior women financial advisers does not engender an atmosphere or a business approach that will necessarily make other women feel comfortable.
It smacks of an old-fashioned world where the man defends the homestead while the woman remains in the wagon.
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Age is no barrier for Nationwide
Let’s hear it for Nationwide. Its decision to increase the maximum lending age from 75 to 85 is a major step towards dismantling age discrimination in this area.
Most lenders’ attitudes to retired people fail to reflect reality. The Office for National Statistics predicts that almost a quarter of the population will be aged 65 and over by 2034.
The government no longer acknowledges an official retirement age. Many pensioners are relatively well-off and have a reliable income stream, yet lenders can treat them as pariahs.
Some have been attempting to kick out borrowers as young as 65.
Their arguments were effectively dismantled when the Financial Ombudsman Service began ruling that lenders could not use assumptions just by using age alone to refuse to extend mortgage terms.
So those, like National Counties Building Society, that do not impose arbitrary age limits have been shown to have the right approach.
Others need to follow the Nationwide’s lead. The longer a borrower can retain a normal mortgage with a mainstream lender, the stronger their financial position is likely to be.
If they do eventually need to fall back on an equity release mortgage surely it is better to do it towards the end of their ninth decade rather than midway through their seventh.
Of course equity release has its place for those who are house-rich, cash-poor. But borrowers should not feel compelled to use it simply because the lender they have paid without problem for decades just decides they are too old.
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Project Fear is overrated
At the end of January, Bank of England governor Mark Carney told the Treasury Select Committee that interest rates could rise if we left the EU.
Then on 8 May, the Sunday Times reported he was sounding out banks over a possible cut in interest rates if the UK leaves the EU.
On 9 May the Prime Minister was warning that interest rates would rise and house prices would fall if we left (first-time buyers might not think the latter is such a bad thing though).
Project Fear? More like Project Headless Chicken.
Tony Hazell writes for the Daily Mail’s Money Mail section. He can be contacted on t.hazell@gmail.com
