Women's Day 2021: Women investors on Street nearly double in 2020, but they still have a long way to go​

For long, the lanes and bylanes of Dalal Street have been dominated by male investors and they still do so but the availability of easily accessible trading platforms and growing financial awareness are contributing to the rise of women investors in the country.

Data from various brokerage firms shows a large section of the Indian population is still away from trading and investing actively.

BSE data shows, some 6.3 crore investors are registered with the exchange. This is very small considering that India's population is around 139 crore.

However, since the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of retail investors grew sharply due to reasons ranging from attractive valuations to having extra time to study equities and the market. Besides, market correction in March 2020 was taken as a good opportunity by retail investors to enter the market.

COVID-19 triggered a boom in equity participation as an alternative to earning some income, coupled with incentives and discounts from brokerage houses.

All these factors also led to the rise of women investors. The current trends show that the number of woman investors has grown as much as four times since the last year.

Kavitha Subramanian, Co-Founder of broking firm Upstox said her firm witnessed a sharp jump in the number of accounts opened by women investors since the last year.

"We have witnessed a nearly 4 times jump in accounts opened by women since last year. Of these, more than 75 percent are first-time women investors, about 60 percent are millennial women, and more than 35 percent are housewives," said Subramanian.

Broking firm Sharekhan also underscored the rise in the number of women investors.

"2020-21 has seen significant growth in capital market participation and this was true for women as well. If we compare Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, the number of women who opened an account with Sharekhan in Jan 2021 was 77 percent more than the number of accounts opened in Jan 2020," said Jaideep Arora, CEO, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.

"The same parameter when comparing December 2020 and December 2019 stands at 66 percent. This sort of growth was true across most of 2020-21 which implies that women were major contributors to the market participation growth we saw in 2020," said Arora.

Asmita Patel, a well-known female trader and also the founder of Asmita Patel Global School of Trading, pointed out that the number of women investors were very few about 15 years ago.

"When I started 15 years back, the ratio of women to men was quite low. Women traders and investors have seen quite a rise in the last few years and a significant rise during the pandemic. In fact, the number of female students in our training programs has increased too," Patel said.

Patel underscored that generating a parallel source of income is not gender-specific and due to the pandemic, everybody including females was able to find ways to regulate their daily income through different sources and investing in the stock market is the best way to generate consistent income.

Still, a long way to go

A study shows that only 33 percent of women make their own investment decisions against 64 percent of men.

Despite the fact that women possess several traits that make them better savers and prudent investors, the low numbers are a testament that they still depend on their male counterparts — husband, father, brother — when it comes to money matters.

"Women are inherently good at planning and managing finances for themselves and their family. Even so, the total share of women's accounts remains at 13 percent," Subramanian of Upstox said.

"While women today are more financially independent, many are yet to familiarise themselves with the world of finance. We are confident this number will continue to grow as financial awareness and education reach more women across India, including tier 2 and 3 cities," said Subramanian.

The orthodox social beliefs also pose challenges to women investors.

"We’ve always heard and been told that the stock market is a male-dominated industry. Getting on the stage to educate men about how they can trade or invest better, I had a lot of eyes rolling on me. 'Ladki stock market sikhaygi kya'," said Patel.

It is disappointing that women still have to fight a lot to make their space in almost every aspect of the world. But more often than not, they succeed.

"Initially it did start with a feeling of an outsider, but eventually when I started growing and my work started showing results. People started accepting that the stock market is for everybody and not just men," said Patel.

The stock market is the perfect place for any woman to start their journey towards financial freedom. Women have always been known to be naturally gifted when it comes to savings and expenses.

"I feel, investing and finances come more naturally to women as they have a more rational and calculated decision-making process," said Arora of Sharekhan.

"I’d urge more and more women to take up investing in the capital markets by giving their savings more action, owing to their finances and make their own investment decisions and feeding their curiosity of the capital markets by learning more about how the capital markets function and take complete control of their financial goals," he said.

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