Women and finance: beyond the clichés

The levers for accessing finance for women's projects are there. And so do successful careers in the financial world. But obstacles linked to perceptions, political games and culture persist...

Let's start with the good news. In Belgium, the growth in the number of self-employed people is proportionately higher among women than among men. This is according to the FPS Economy, based on figures for 2022. The less encouraging news is that even today, only 38% of start-ups are women. ‘Women still too often run smaller businesses with fewer employees than their male counterparts’, the public service's online report points out.

Among the main obstacles identified, access to finance remains at the forefront. In particular, entrepreneurs are more likely to apply for credit than female entrepreneurs (35% compared with 28%). The median amounts requested are also higher for men (€33,000) than for women (€26,700). This disparity is automatically reflected in the amounts granted by banks.

Even if it is a little difficult to find truly concrete actions in this catalogue of intentions, the initiative provides a useful roadmap and has helped to keep the women's entrepreneurial ecosystem in a positive and proactive dynamic. Let's hope that the next statistics will bring women's entrepreneurship much closer to 50% in the years to come.

To delve deeper into the subject of women's relationship with finance, we invite you to meet two highly committed professionals...

Have there been more female project promoters in recent years?

The number of female founders applying has risen slightly. This is partly the result of the work we've been doing for a number of years to raise awareness among ‘eligible’ women entrepreneurs. We can see the impact of incubation programmes like WeAreFounders, in which more and more women are taking part. As far as investors are concerned, only 15% of our business angel members are women. Aware of the issue, I set up the women's business angels club in 2012, but progress is still very slow.  

How can this situation be improved?

The levers we need to activate are in the private banks, trusts or wealth advisers who advise women who own capital: there are more and more of them, senior managers in large companies or entrepreneurs. Studies have shown that women investors tend to have rather defensive profiles, even though we are in a very risky asset class. However, by allocating a small part of their wealth to the companies we propose, women also have the opportunity to make a very real investment in the economic world of today and tomorrow, and to develop their network.  

Could this lack of female investors be linked to a lesser familiarity with, or appetite for, figures? Or is it a cliché?

I have met women who had finance as part of their curriculum a long time ago and who, because they have forgotten about it, see it as a hindrance. But it's not. Firstly, you never invest alone. What's more, we offer our business angels training or refresher courses in financial management, operations and balance sheet analysis. You don't need to be a financial expert to become a business angel.  

Without generalising, do you see any differences between the PowerPoints of male and female project leaders?

Less and less. Above all, we're seeing more and more mixed teams. This new generation of entrepreneurs is different. Once again, this is thanks to incubators and accelerators that encourage diversity among co-founders. A real catch-up is taking place.  

Studies tend to show that women seek lower investment amounts than men...

Here too, we need to be wary of generalisations. Sometimes women tend to ask for too little, which can be seen as a lack of ambition. Let's say that, on the one hand, they are realistic and don't want to go too far beyond what they know they can decently obtain. On the other hand - and this is also the case for men - they may limit their estimated needs to cash flow. But financing a business to launch a new stage in its development means making a convincing case for scalability and budgeting for human resources, marketing and go-to-market. That said, the quality of the projects presented to us is constantly improving. Once again, this is the effect of dedicated support structures. We are also working hard to evangelise our project leaders. I myself recently presented an accelerator for female entrepreneurs, run by Leïla Maidane and Bea Ercolini, to the members of Shifting Standards.  

KBC Startit, finance.brussels... are the various dedicated financing initiatives useful?

Financing a business also means activating a network. We realised that women entrepreneurs were less connected than men. These initiatives, such as Loubna Azghoud's Money Academy, help them save time in understanding the financing process and identifying the right levers and partners depending on the stage of development of their project.

The catalogue of measures on access to finance for women entrepreneurs initiated by Minister Clarinval stresses the importance of a gender balance on bank credit committees. What exactly is the situation?

In reality, the credit function within Belgian banks has been very egalitarian in this respect for a long time. Having worked on such committees myself, I think that the prejudices that might have existed 30 years ago have been greatly reduced.  

Is there still progress to be made?

The women we interviewed who are active on these committees point to differences. More often than not, an entrepreneur negotiates his financing alone, whereas their female counterparts prefer to be accompanied by a family member or an accountant, often a man as well. In addition, men will tend to put several banks in competition with each other, whereas their female counterparts are more likely to seek a relationship of trust with a single institution. That's why it's so important to make female entrepreneurs aware of the diversity of options available, such as microcredit, and to train bankers to recommend these alternatives if they have to refuse a loan. We are taking action along these lines among our members, as well as on certain perception biases that may still exist.  

The report also refers to the need for more inclusive communication...

‘You can't be what you can't see’. Whether in advertising campaigns or in all seminars, conferences or events linked to entrepreneurship, this mix is fundamental. It must not be limited to gender diversity. This is why we are very involved in promoting the ‘inclusive panels’ charter.  

Are the obstacles to women's careers particularly strong in the financial sector?

No more so than in other sectors. But tackling the issue on a sectoral basis means that difficult questions can be asked more openly, knowledge can be accumulated more quickly, experiences can be shared and good practice can be exchanged to accelerate women's progress. This is particularly true in our sector where, with a few nuances, all the players have the same gender mix. For example, in every major bank in the country, at every level of qualification and age, around 50% of employees are women.  

All age levels, but not in the hierarchy...

Progress is being made. We've gone from 25% to 32% in senior management in just a few years. But there are still glass ceilings. Our very detailed data has revealed new ones. We can see where and at what precise moments women are being ‘lost’. For example, within the ‘middle management’ block, 45% of employees are women. This is nothing to worry about. But if we look in detail at the job classifications, we see pockets where the differential is much greater. This detailed analysis enables us to look much more closely at the reasons for this and to consider the measures that need to be taken.  

What are the reasons for this?

They are linked to several dimensions. Firstly, the culture: to what extent does an organisation openly promote equal opportunities, combat sexism and allow everyone to be themselves? The banks have done a lot of work on this. Then there are the political games. Our studies show that what encourages men and women to leave their jobs is not so much a poor work-life balance, but everything to do with leadership or unwritten rules. For example, the fact that certain functions cannot be combined with part-time work. It's not written down anywhere, but it's on everyone's mind. And finally, skills development. And yet the sector today welcomes a wide range of profiles, with skills that are particularly common among women, such as collaborative skills, creativity and ‘out of the box’ thinking. So it's up to the players in the sector to make better use of these skills, starting with recruitment campaigns.  

More broadly, are there fundamental differences in the way men and women relate to finance?

You can see it in all sorts of ways. Febelfin regularly conducts surveys on various populations and the answers differ whether you're a woman or a man. It starts very early. For example, it's very interesting to see that statistically, young boys receive more allowance than girls. And when we ask young people if they know about certain financial tools, girls are less convinced than boys that they do, when in reality this is not the case. In the older age groups, we find that it is mainly men who ‘have the upper hand’ in household financial matters, and that they are the main contacts for private bankers.  

So there are gender norms that condition women's relationship with finance?

I'm not a sociologist, but in any case, there is a question of representation. Ask 100 people to close their eyes and think of their bank. 99 of them will see a white man in a suit and tie, even though there are as many women as men in the branches, including head office managers. Similarly, when we ask young women to compare their dream job with what they imagine a job in finance to be like, the gap is much wider than for men. A much higher proportion of women than men tell me that they got into banking ‘a bit by chance’. Finance is still too little a part of women's conscious plans.