Women in Super welcome focus on financial literacy

The fact that many New Zealand women do not have good financial literacy is no surprise to Women in Super (NZ) Inc, a national not for profit organisation of women associated with the superannuation industry.

"Women in Super applauds the ANZ-Retirement Commission Financial Knowledge Survey released today as we consider it a first step towards improving financial literacy in adult New Zealanders" says Women in Super chairperson, Tracey Cross. "We are not surprised at the survey results showing that significantly more women than men have low financial knowledge (40% of women fall into this category compared to only 25% of men). Similarly when it comes to women with high financial knowledge, women are behind men at 29% compared to men at 39%."

Ms Cross, who is a managed funds and superannuation specialist partner at the trans-Tasman law firm, Phillips Fox, says while previous research has been carried out on financial literacy amongst school children, this is the first time a comprehensive survey has been carried out on adult New Zealanders.

"Women in Super support efforts to improve financial literacy as we consider that increased financial literacy will be a key requirement for the new KiwiSaver scheme to succeed in its objective of increasing retirement savings amongst New Zealanders.

Ms Cross says the survey highlights the issue that women are a group who will really benefit from the proposed financial literacy education programme aimed to complement the introduction of the new KiwiSaver scheme. "The programme is scheduled to be developed this year, and Women in Super is looking forward to seeing further details as they emerge."