August is Women’s Month in South Africa, and it presents an opportunity to look beyond financial inclusion and ask a more important question: Are more women becoming confident in the financial decisions they make? Events such as JSE SheInvests are helping to widen conversations about money, markets, and long-term wealth. Stats SA’s latest General Household Survey shows that 42.4% of South African households were female-headed in 2024. That is a reminder that women’s financial decisions affect households, children, businesses, communities, and long-term financial stability.
Access matters, but access alone is not empowerment. Financial confidence is what helps someone pause, assess an opportunity, ask the right questions, understand the risks, and avoid being influenced by pressure or unrealistic promises.
Confidence matters beyond investing
When people speak about women and finance, the discussion often moves quickly to inclusion. Inclusion is important, but it cannot only mean giving more people access to platforms, products, and information.
Access can help people compare options, learn about markets, and take more control over financial decisions. Without enough knowledge, though, it can also bring them closer to risk before they are ready to judge it properly. For many women managing households, building businesses or planning for their families’ futures, confidence to evaluate financial choices is just as important as access itself.
That is especially true in an environment where financial content is everywhere. A person can see an investment offer on social media, join a trading group, watch a video about forex, or be approached with a promise of high returns within minutes. Some of that information is useful, but it sits alongside content that can be misleading or fraudulent. The important step is recognising the difference before money is committed.
The warning signs are often familiar
The FSCA has repeatedly warned South Africans about unauthorised trading offers, impersonation scams, fake forex schemes, and investment approaches promoted on social media or messaging platforms. These warnings should not make people afraid of markets, but they should make people more careful.
A legitimate opportunity should be able to withstand basic questions. Who is offering it? Are they authorised to offer it? What are the costs? What is the risk? How are returns being generated? What happens if the outcome is different from what was promised?
Those questions help people slow down the decision-making process long enough to see the risk more clearly.
Women’s Month is a good time to recognise that many women already carry significant financial responsibility, often while navigating complex household, career, and business decisions. Better financial education gives them more room to make those decisions with confidence.
Education before action
At CFI, we believe education should come before execution. Market access has real value, but only when people understand the products they are using, the risks they are taking, and the decisions they are making. Technology can make financial markets more accessible, but it should also help people make more informed decisions rather than encourage faster ones.
A demo environment allows people to practise before committing capital. Learning resources through the CFI Academy can help build knowledge gradually. Webinars and market commentary can help people understand what is moving markets in plain language.
Markets can move quickly, and emotion can make decisions more expensive than necessary. If someone invests without understanding the product, costs, or time horizon, the decision may not meet their needs.
Saving, investing, and trading are not the same thing. Savings create stability. Long-term investing can support future goals. Trading requires active risk management and should never be treated as a shortcut around financial pressure.
Confidence is built in decisions
Financial confidence is built through repeated decisions, not by a single event or product. It grows when people understand the basics, test their thinking, check who they are dealing with, and avoid being rushed into commitments they do not fully understand.Women’s Month should therefore look beyond financial access alone and focus on whether more women are able to approach financial tools with preparation and judgement.
Financial education will not remove every barrier women face or solve income pressure, household costs, or unequal opportunity on its own. It can, however, help people pause, compare options, recognise warning signs, and make decisions with greater confidence.
That is perhaps the most practical form of financial empowerment: not simply opening the door to financial markets but giving people the confidence and judgement to walk through it with a clear understanding of both the opportunities and the risks.
By Francois Du Plessis, Chief Executive Officer for South Africa of CFI Financial Group South Africa
