The new measures were announced by ANZ today and are designed to help women better engage with their financial futures and address the structural bias and subsequent financial disadvantages they face in the workplace and in retirement.
This announcement follows ANZ’s release of a new research report into gender inequality in Australia which found that over their lifetime, Australian women earn on average $700,000 less than men.
ANZ chief executive officer Mike Smith said, “Promoting diversity and gender equality is a priority in our business. This includes pay equality and an equal representation of women in leadership roles.
“Much more still needs to be done though to achieve full gender equality in the workplace and while we recognise we’re not there yet, today’s announcement is about rethinking how we address the imbalances women face in the workplace and in retirement,” Mr Smith said.
Other measures include super contributions on parental leave to be paid for up to 24 months, up from 12 months, for Australia-based employees on their return to work and top-up superannuation payments of $500 per annum to ANZ’s permanent and fixed-term female employees in Australia to address the gap in retirement savings.
ANZ chief executive for global wealth, Joyce Phillips, said, “Women play a critical role in global economies – however, our report shows they can still earn up to 36 per cent less than men and retire with around half the superannuation.
“Over time, we believe these new measures will help improve the financial security of women at ANZ by directly targeting the areas of advice, superannuation and financial education,” Ms Phillips said.
why only $50K ? why not free advice for all ? How does any of this address ‘structural bias’ for women ? Who would want to be male, over 50, bald and over weight working in the corporates today anyway? (sorry Mike don’t mean you) I can tell how to fix financial security for women at ANZ, stop off shoring jobs and stop giving valuable stuff (advice) away for free, someone always has to pay and it is not normally the shareholder !!
As with the term “independent” there should be a restriction in the use of the term “free” when it comes to advice or financial services. Where there are strings, there is no such thing as a free service.
Haha yes prudent advice to ‘roll into an ANZ super fund’.
While I applaud ANZ’s initiative to connect more customers with advice, it’s not clear to me whether as a male customer with less than 50 grand in super my daughter would qualify for the free advice, but my son wouldnt by virtue of his gender? Also, what ‘advice’ does this extend to? if it’s crappy ‘robo advice’ that designed to hook them up with an ETF portfolio – forget it.
Will these “specialist financial planners trained in the needs and preferences of women” only be women or will ANZ be ensuring that equal opportunity be provided for male planners to be engaged in this process ?
ANZ will obviously state they are an equal opportunity employer, however it will be interesting to see just how the ratio of female versus male specialist planners will eventuate.
It is surely a concern that the offer of free anything may or may not determine the value of what is being provided or is it simply a marketing exercise with a carrot attached ?
Hmmm.. loss leaders upfront? Free super rollover to ANZ account? What kind of advice? What incentives in place for planners to put money into this product? Questions galore