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Alice Yan

Win the hearts of China’s damas – the country’s middle-aged and elderly women – and you’ll be well on your way to winning the China market.
Affluent and with plenty of spare cash to invest, China’s damas made the headlines in recent years after they rushed to buy gold in 2013, helping global gold prices stabilise from a sharp sell-off.
This group of Chinese women, who generally possess limited financial knowledge, are being keenly pursued by wealth managers and property agents as they eye China’s promising silver-hair market.
People aged above 60 will make up 39 per cent of China’s population by 2050, compared with the present 15 per cent, according to official data.
READ MORE: The dancing damas: China’s ‘square dancers’ take society by storm
Damas are often seen in stock bourses, banks and property agencies as they go about their investment decisions in much the same way as they buy clothes in shopping malls and food in the wet markets.
“I have held shares of many enterprises, though I don’t understand their business,” said Yu Liping, a 58-year-old retired woman in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province.
“My investments are all recommended by my friends and I believe in group psychology, which means things bought by many people are a must-buy.”
Yu said all her friends and relatives her age invest. Only the very old people, like those in their 80s, would leave their money in the bank, she said.
“But in China, there are very few investment options, and if others say a financial product is good, I will also regard it as good and join the buyer’s cohort,” she said.
Yu followed her friends in buying shares of a Hunan-based bamboo fibre manufacturer in August last year and is looking forward to the company’s Australia listing next year.
But even as she enthusiastically shared details of that 150,000 yuan investment, Yu also related the woeful tale of having put 100,000 yuan earlier this year into Shenzhen Anzi Group, which was collecting funds from the public to launch its online shopping centre.
The group was in July exposed by the Southern Metropolis News for conducting illegal fund-raising and its founder was put under police investigation. Yu has not received her money back from the investment.
Yu also recalled putting 380,000 yuan into shares when the stock market was bullish last year. The stocks’ paper value had since shrunk to just 80,000 yuan, she said
The dama attributed her investment failures to new technologies and concepts such as peer-to-peer financing, trust products and crowdfunding.
“I don’t really know how to use the internet well,” she said.
Even so, Yu and her counterparts are considered financial firms’ VIPs, with wealth managers sparing no effort in maintaining good relations with them.
“Dama usually have a large amount of idle money after having saved throughout most of their lives. In a majority of families, women are the financial controllers,” said Ivan Li, a wealth manager who used to work at a China Merchants Bank branch in Shanghai’s Huangpu district.
“After retiring, these women are free all day and are more willing to invest than young people who are always busy with their work,” Li said.
The wealth manager said at least half of his 400 clients were damas and that the average amount of assets each dama put in his bank came up to half a million yuan.
In dealing with this group of clients, sales workers relied more on their “selling skills” than on professional knowledge, he said.
Last year, the Beijing Evening News reported that a young Pingan Bank accounts manager joined dozens of damas in dancing at a public square in Beijing every evening as a business development tactic.
“Because damas have little knowledge of financial products, sales people should be patient enough to answer their trivial questions,” Li said. “Some aunties spent two to three hours in front of our banks, inquring about our products and chatting with us.”
Xu Jinping, general manager for Fu Hua Asset’s eastern China region, said good sales attitude was an important factor behind many damas’ investment decisions.
The latest Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services Global Financial Literacy Survey found that 63 per cent of Chinese adults who owned a credit card were financially illiterate. The poll measures a person’s financial literacy based on his or her understanding of concepts such as risk diversification, inflation and compound interest.
More than 70 per cent of adults in Asia did not adequately understand these key monetary ideas – higher than the world average of 66 per cent – according to the survey.
“In future, there will be fewer such elderly women who like to invest but are financially illiterate,” Xu said. “The market teaches them lessons and people will become more educated in wealth management.”


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Why China's women are being pursued by wealth managers and property agents

Old people perform square dance in street at Wangjing, a residential area in Beijing on Dec. 12, 2014. Numerous old people in China like to spend their spare time dancing in different styles in parks or streets in the morning and early evening. 12DEC14 Photo by Simon Song

Old people dance square dancing in Tiantan Park (Heavenly Peace Park) in Beijing in the morning on Dec. 15, 2014. Numerous old people in China like to spend their spare time dancing in different styles in parks or streets in the morning and early evening. 15DEC14 Photo by Simon Song

Damas perform a square dance at a residential area in Beijing. Photo: Simon Song

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China

Money & Wealth

China’s damas have plenty of spare cash to invest, and a good sales attitude matters more to them than solid professional knowledge, say wealth managers


.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}China’s damas have plenty of spare cash to invest, and a good sales attitude matters more to them than solid professional knowledge, say wealth managers

China’s damas have plenty of spare cash to invest, and a good sales attitude matters more to them than solid professional knowledge, say wealth managers