Stephanie Wilks-Wiffen
Director of Marketing at eToro UK & DACH
“The industry told women they were the problem. The data says otherwise.” Stephanie Wilks-Wiffen, on why she launched Loud Investing — and why the industry needs to stop apologising for women.
When Stephanie Wilks-Wiffen, Director of Marketing, eToro UK & DACH, looks at the numbers behind the gender investment gap, she doesn’t see a marketing challenge. She sees a systemic injustice — and one that the financial services industry has been making worse.
How negative language impact female investors
“There’s a £574 billion gender investment gap in the UK alone,”1 she says. “And for years, the industry’s response has been to tell women we’re ‘too nervous’ or ‘lack confidence’ to invest. Essentially, that we’re the problem.”
It’s a narrative Wilks-Wiffen found not just lazy, but actively damaging. To test its real-world impact, eToro analysed more than 80 UK financial services reports and campaigns published between 2020 and 2025.
The findings were stark: more than half framed women negatively on confidence, using phrases like “don’t know where to start” or “too scared of losing money.” Only one in five highlighted women’s genuine strengths as investors.
“We also tested what happens when women are actually exposed to that language,” she explains. “We surveyed 2,000 UK women and showed them the headlines financial firms regularly use. One in five said it put them off investing altogether. Almost a quarter felt patronised. Seventeen percent said it left them less motivated. The industry isn’t just failing women — it’s actively discouraging them.”
Questioning, having patience, limiting unnecessary risk — that’s not a weakness; that’s a superpower
“Women aren’t risk-averse. They’re risk aware. And there’s a world of difference.”
What frustrates Wilks-Wiffen most is the gulf between the industry’s assumptions and the actual evidence. Research from Warwick Business School shows that women investors outperform men by nearly 2% per year — precisely because of traits the industry dismisses as weaknesses.
Celebrating women’s differences rather than seeing them as weaknesses
“The reality is the complete opposite of what women are told,” she says. “Women take a longer-term perspective, trade less frequently and weigh up their options carefully. The industry calls that a lack of confidence. The data calls it superior performance. Questioning, having patience, limiting unnecessary risk — that’s not a weakness; that’s a superpower.”
That insight sits at the heart of Loud Investing, the movement eToro launched to fundamentally change how the industry talks to women. The approach is deliberately direct: stop telling women to be more like men and start celebrating what makes them effective investors in their own right.
“When we showed women the headline ‘Women investors outperform men by 2%’, 44% said it increased their motivation to invest,” she notes. “And among women who don’t currently invest, 26% said they wanted to learn more. That’s the power of getting the framing right. Positive language doesn’t just feel better — it drives action.”
Representation equally important as changing the narrative
But changing the narrative is only part of the battle. Representation, Wilks-Wiffen argues, is equally critical. eToro’s research found that 41% of women don’t relate to those who talk publicly about investing, with more than half saying it’s mostly men — and mostly people who work in finance.
It’s a message rooted in something personal as much as political. Women invest less, retire with less — and yet live longer. The stakes of staying silent, Wilks-Wiffen believes, could not be higher.
“Today, 7.4 million women in the UK invest.1 That’s 7.4 million potential role models,” she says. “We’re calling on every single one of them to pay it forward — to have just one conversation about investing with a female friend, colleague or family member who doesn’t currently invest. Tell them why you invest. Tell them what you invest in. Tell them where to go to find out more. Because one conversation could change someone’s entire financial future. That’s what Loud Investing is.”
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