Women's Financial Site Debuts on Schwab.com
Web Site Designed to Offer a More Engaging and Efficient Portal to Investment Information
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- A new financial site on Schwab.com is now available, designed to offer a more engaging portal to investment education, resources, tools and discussion. The Web site is a key component of Schwab's Women Investing Now, a multi-faceted multi-channel program designed to inspire women to increase their own financial knowledge and share that knowledge with family and friends.
The design of the new site, www.Schwab.com/women, reflects the findings of a Harris Interactive study, which was commissioned by Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (NYSE: SCH) The study showed that women tend to have learning styles that differ from men's and that many women have a strong preference for learning from other women in a collaborative and interactive environment. As a result, the new site features tools and resources that directly speak to this preference.
Research findings further showed, however, that women don't want investing to be "pink." Women feel strongly that investment information should not be gender-stereotyped to make it more palatable. Nor do they want to be led by fear or stories of doom and gloom.
"Women want to be spoken to about investing, not about the obstacles they may face as women," said Carrie Schwab Pomerantz, vice president of consumer education and daughter of company founder, Chairman and Co-CEO Charles Schwab. "The new site reflects our belief that women are insightful investors whose experience of the world around them easily translates into investment knowledge and power."
The web site is organized into several key sections. "Talk/Share/Learn" provides links to articles written by female investment professionals, a message board for women investors, a series of interactive workshops, weekly forums, and the ability to pose questions to an investment advisor. The "Life Event Series" provides easy-to-use tools and tips on topics that have a particularly big financial impact: making a job transition, raising money-wise children, getting a divorce, losing a spouse, and planning for retirement. "Dates to Remember" offers a calendar of seminars in branches and a schedule of online events. Links back to Schwab.com enable visitors to screen and analyze stocks or mutual funds, use a suite of planning tools, perform a portfolio check-up, and place trade orders.
"There are two things that make our Web site unique," said Schwab-Pomerantz. "One is that we don't stop at just offering investment education. We give users the ability to take the next step -- whether it's creating or modifying a plan, choosing investments, finding an advisor, or placing a trade."
"Equally as important, we're creating a community of women investors," she added. "Our goal is to inspire women who are already experienced investors to share their knowledge as role models and money mentors, and we want to make it easy for them to do that."
This new resource underscores Schwab's ongoing online and offline efforts to empower investors with the knowledge and confidence they need to make the best possible investment decisions.
The Charles Schwab Corporation, through Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (member SIPC/NYSE), U.S. Trust Corporation, CyBerCorp, Inc. and its other operating subsidiaries, is one of the world's leading financial services firms with 7.4 million active accounts and $961 billion in client assets. As of September 30, 2000, Schwab served 4.2 million online investor accounts with $419.7 billion in assets. Approximately 25% of total client assets are managed by third-party fee-based investment advisors. Schwab provides a full-service investing experience to clients through 399 domestic offices, five regional client telephone service centers, the Internet, automated telephone touch-tone and voice recognition service, e-mail, wireless technologies and multi-lingual and international offices. The Charles Schwab, U.S. Trust and CyBerCorp Web sites can be reached at www.schwab.com, www.ustrust.com and www.cybercorp.com, respectively.
SOURCE Charles Schwab
CO: Charles Schwab Corporation; Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. |
