The nature of women in society has changed considerably as women are becoming better educated, and as a result are getting better paid jobs and are also leaving it later to start their families. However, women are still not being paid as well as men and on average are earning only 72 percent of the salaries of their male counterparts. It is still for the most part women who take breaks to care for children or dependent relatives and it is this which makes financial planning difficult, most especially in the area of pensions.

There is little statistical information which breaks down the financial services markets by gender, but it would seem that many women are badly catered for by the industry. Yvonne Rose from 'Women and Money', a company which runs courses to demystify the products and their accompanying jargon, feels that women need flexible products which do not penalise them for career breaks. Other features which would make products more accessible to everyone would be lower initial premiums for products which would allow more people to benefit from the tax breaks associated with products such as PEPS. Women, and indeed men, also need easy to read documents which help the customer to understand what they are buying rather, than cloaking the complicated charging structures behind jargon. Indeed, many people would benefit from a simplifying of the charging structures on many products. For example, when a client sees that they are having over 100 percent of their premiums allocated to units, they feel that they are being given something for nothing when in actual fact this is after the charges have been made, and the bid offer spread, which is the difference in the price at which units are sold to the customer and bought back by the company. Women also like to have a relationship with their advisor and will return again to someone in whom they can trust.

Some changes are also needed in legislation to really level the pensions playing field. For women for example, the ability to continue contributions during career breaks would really help them to build up a fund for retirement even if they were unable to afford much. Tobe Aleksander of National Council for Women stresses however that the real problem is that women cannot afford these products and until the differential in earnings is corrected there is little chance for an improved situation.

Financial Services marketing for women can be divided into three elements: product, packaging and promotion. This includes where and how the product is advertised and promoted. There is a danger that this may backfire, such attempts can be seen to be patronising and wrapping a product in pink ribbon is not offering women what they really need. Finally, there is the actual selling method, face-to-face, by telephone or direct mail. There was an attempt by the Bank of Scotland to have a women only branch, which was very popular but this was deemed to show discrimination and was discontinued. There are a few, successful women only brokerages which claim they offer women the information and service they require.

The market for financial services for women is something of an unknown quantity. In the area of life assurance there is an obvious difference, as rates for men and women are different because of the actuarial basis on which they are calculated, but this is not true of all sectors savings, bank and building society accounts have no need for any differential as the basic product is the same and equally accessible for all. Pension and mortgages are something of a different area. In recent times there has been an increase in the number of mortgages and pensions which give women the opportunity to take a payment holiday whilst they have increased commitments or are unable to work. This could be used during a career break for having a baby or caring for a sick relative. These products are not and indeed cannot be marketed exclusively for women, but they are termed 'baby-break' products and women are probably the main market for these.

MAPS commissioned original research into womens potential purchases of financial services products in the next 6-12 months. The majority of women surveyed are not planning any expenditure on financial services products, the exception being young women who were often in a position to be looking for a bank or building society accounts. The lowest expectation seemed to be in the area of mortgages where there was little intention of making any investments.

The credit card market has expandedly enormously recently, with over 20 different issuers and 32 million cards being issued on 24 million accounts. Plastic cards in general are now becoming very widely used. Many retail groups offer store cards which offer a certain amount of free credit if the balance is paid off, but can be a very expensive way of borrowing money if any of the balance is left outstanding. No marketing is directed explicitly at women, but there would appear to be more women account holders than men.

The most recent innovation in the plastic card area has been the sophisticated loyalty cards offered by the supermarkets. Tesco launched its Clubcard Plus last year, offering interest on the balance of an account which can be used as a budget account. In February 1997, Sainsbury announced that they had teamed up with the Bank of Scotland to offer classic and gold credit cards and other banking services. These cards earn Reward points when used even if they are used in a rival supermarket. These products are bound to appeal to women as they will offer convenience and flexibility and will be situated in an extremely convenient location.

The loyalty card now offered by all the large supermarkets, provide them with information about how, when and where their customers shop and provide the customers with discounts offers and bonuses either in the form of cash or goods. This is at a cost. It is estimated that the increase in sales required to cover the costs is between 1.5 percent and 4 percent. Tescos Clubcard is estimated to have cost £10 million to launch and this will be recouped from the customer through prices.

Savings and investment products are not gender specific by nature and it seems that there is little evidence of any promotional activity launched specifically at women. National savings are the most popular of the savings products which may be partly due to their accessibility. This is an area in which plain straight forward products, which are simple to understand could benefit the market generally and women specifically. Care needs to be taken not to patronise women, but they do need to be made more aware of the existence of some of these products. Women need lower minimum premiums to make these products accessible, but products then tend to be poor value for money and administration costs eat up a larger proportion of the investment.

Lenders have become aware of the pressures on families when the income is reduced, for example, when a woman takes a career break to have a baby or care for a sick relative. Products have therefore been developed which permit a payment holiday for usually about six months. Whilst these products are termed 'baby break' mortgages, the payment holiday may be taken on redundancy or during a period of temporary increased expenditure. Sometimes these options are in built into the mortgage, but the Halifax have taken the route of including it in their mortgage protection insurance.

Possibly the most pressing financial need for women is to arrange their pension provision. Most women are under provided for and many rely on their husband's pension provision, which can leave them seriously under provided for on retirement. This is the result of a number of factors partly due to the lower contributions women tend to be able to make because of the effects of career breaks on their earning ability and the number of years for which they can contribute. Additionally, because women live longer they receive poorer annuities for the same purchase price, as the payments are liable to continue for longer. It is thus important for women to put away what they can at an early age in order that their investment can accrue for a longer period.

Pension providers are beginning to become aware that information is required and both TSB and Midland have produced general information on pensions to explain the situation. The Midland placed an advertorial in Good Housekeeping magazine to promote their tape ' The Holiday of a Lifetime'.

Bank accounts and building society accounts are showing a trend towards becoming more straightforward and if the Midland are setting trend, more 'fee-free'. There is little evidence of targeting of women in this area as 75 percent of customers have been with their banks for more than 10 years which indicates a need to enrol account holders at an early age. This means that marketing campaigns are more likely to be aimed at young people. There is little need to target women specifically because their banking requirements seem to show little variation from those of men.

The entry of Sainsbury and Tesco into this arena however may change the face of banking. Both these supermarkets have launched joint ventures with banks to offer financial services to their customers, as has been mentioned in connection with credit and store cards. These ventures may pave the way for other new entrants and perhaps will encourage people to have more than one account.

The fact that there is little information relating to product ownership by gender means that perhaps correctly, there has not been a perceived need for different approaches in the marketing of financial products to women. However the success of those ventures which have been aimed at women indicate that there is a need in the market place.

Perhaps one of the most important areas is in advice. National & Provincial Building Society had a department to promote their products to women which included a Helpline. Those who were involved in this project feel that this was providing a much needed service, but attribute its demise to a lack of proven success by sales figures as there was no means of identifying any sales which were related to this service.

It is doubtless true that for some products there is no need to differentiate the market, but for others there is an identifiable need for innovative products and information.