Banker tries to close gender gap in £550bn investment

A former City banker has launched the UK’s first trading platform aimed at women, in a bid to close a £550bn gender investment gap.

Ayesha Ofori was a senior executive at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs before quitting to found Propelle amid frustration at how women invest far less in stocks and other financial assets than men.

This puts them at a financial disadvantage, with lower savings and pensions. Men living in the UK have more than £1 trillion invested compared to just £450 billion for women, according to figures from Boring Money, with a lack of confidence cited as a major factor.

After raising £1.2m in seed funding, Ofori has created Propelle, which launches today to combine education, events and access to investment funding.

“I got to a point where I started to feel frustrated, I was making incredibly rich men even richer and I lost my sense of purpose,” Ofori said of her decision to leave her job at Goldman Sachs, where she managed £500m of client money in the wealth management team.

“I was annoyed by the lack of female customers, I said ‘where are the women?’”

People often think you have to be rich to invest, Ofori said, but “the beauty of investing is the compounding that happens over time.” The effect of compounding is that if you reinvest the interest or dividends, you get a return on them that adds to your initial investment.

Propelle will offer funds from investment giants Vanguard, BlackRock and HSBC.

There are plans to invest in other assets, such as property, in the future. There is an annual fee of 0.48%, meaning customers would pay £48 for a £10,000 investment, and a premium membership option, where customers pay for access to financial education and other benefits.

There are several companies offering financial education aimed at women, including Female Invest and Your Juno.