Women who open investment accounts at XTB put in nearly half more money on their first deposit than men do, according to internal data from the Warsaw-based broker released on International Women's Day.
The figures, drawn from MiFID questionnaire responses and transaction data collected between April and December 2025, show women depositing an average of 802 euros as their first deposit, compared to 541 euros for men.
The dataset covers more than 155,000 clients, with almost 29,000 women and 127,000 men.
Female Clients Nearly Triple Their Share in Four Years
The deposit gap is not the only number worth watching. Women made up roughly 7% of XTB's investor base in 2021, according to the company. Today, the broker says that figure stands at close to 19%, a shift that XTB attributes, at least in part, to its own efforts on education and product development.
Artur Babicz, PR and Influencer Manager at XTB, described the trend as one of the most encouraging he has observed in capital markets recently.
- Following eToro, XTB Adds Cash ISA With 6% Introductory Rate as Fintech Chase UK Savers
- XTB CEO Calls Indonesia "a Country With a Question Mark" That Must "Prove Itself" in Six Months
- XTB CEO Wants Spot Crypto to Slash CFD Revenue Dominance From 95% to 70%
"For many women, investing is simply an element of building their own financial independence," he said in a LinkedIn post this week. Babicz added that the company aims to make investing "a natural element of financial management" rather than something reserved for a specific type of client.
That framing - democratization of investing - is a common talking point in retail brokerage, but the numbers behind it at XTB are hard to ignore. The broker has been ramping up its marketing spend aggressively, having hired a former Revolut global brand marketing manager earlier this year as part of a push projected to increase marketing expenditure by around 50% year-on-year.
The Profit Motive Is Now Nearly Gender-Neutral
One of the more counterintuitive findings in XTB's data concerns investment goals. When asked about their primary investment objective, 22% of women cited profit maximization, compared to 23% of men, essentially no gap at all. That near-parity challenges a persistent industry assumption that female investors are inherently more conservative or savings-oriented than their male counterparts.
The savings and financial instrument data reinforces that picture. Among XTB clients, 41% of women and 44% of men reported total savings and financial instrument values below 22,500 zlotys (roughly 5,200 euros), while 29% of women versus 26% of men fell in the 22,500 to 89,999 zloty bracket (approximately 5,200 to 20,800 euros), meaning women in this cohort are actually slightly more represented in the middle savings tier.
The emerging profile, then, is of a female investor who enters the market with more capital upfront and pursues returns with goals nearly identical to male peers. Whether that reflects broader demographic shifts or is specific to XTB's client acquisition channels is not addressed in the data.
A Long-Running Shift, Not an Overnight Story
The trend XTB is describing did not start last year. Data from the broker published on International Women's Day in 2024 showed women accounting for an average of 12% of new investors across XTB markets in 2023, with regions like MENA seeing every fourth new trader being a woman. Back then, women's preferred instruments included gold, the S&P 500, EUR/USD, and Tesla, closely mirroring what men were trading.
The picture fits a wider industry pattern, though the broader fintech world has been slower to reflect that shift at leadership level. FMIntelligence data published just days ago shows women hold only 6% of fintech CEO positions globally and represent barely 30% of the overall fintech workforce, even as female founders outperform male peers on capital efficiency, generating 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested versus 31 cents for men.
What the Deposit Gap Actually Signals
The 48% first-deposit premium that women bring to XTB cuts against a widely held narrative in retail finance, that women are slower to invest, deposit less, and need more hand-holding before committing capital. The data suggests the opposite, at least among those who do open accounts.
What it does not tell us is why the initial deposit is larger. It could reflect that women take longer to decide to invest and arrive better prepared. It could reflect differences in income or age brackets within the two groups.
The data covers only one broker's Polish client base and cannot be treated as representative of the broader market. Still, for an industry where 90% of CFD and forex traders globally are male, a 19% female share at a major retail broker is a number that will not go unnoticed.
