ACCESS Advisory

Due to social norms, family responsibilities, and their responsibility for overall household financial management, women’s financial service needs differ from men. Most financial service providers (FSPs) do not take these different needs into account when designing product features and delivery processes. In fact, many FSPs consider women to be less valuable than male customers, and therefore do not invest in understanding and meeting their needs. At the same time, government officials do not have enough information about women’s place in the financial system to design policies and regulations.

S*x-disaggregated data is needed:

1) To enable policymakers to identify gender gaps, formulate of policies to accelerate women’s financial inclusion, and monitor progress toward inclusion goals

2)To enable financial sector supervisors to monitor FSP compliance with regulations

3) To encourage financial institutions to segment their clients by gender and identify business opportunities among women (e.g., through product bundling, strengthening of delivery channels, etc.)

Read more at:

Gender Issues in Financial Inclusion Series 8: Policy approaches for promoting women’s financial inclusion (Part 4)––Basic Concepts and Process for Designing a S*x Disaggregated Data Reporting System | ACCESS Advisory The following information is draw from an Alliance for Financial inclusion (AFI)-funded project in which ACCESS supported the National Bank of Cambodia to implement SDD in 2022. A. Concept and background to SDD Due to social norms, family responsibilities, and their responsibility for overall househ...

Gender Issues in Financial Inclusion Series 5:

Policy approaches for promoting women’s financial inclusion (Part 1)

The key challenges regulators face in promoting women’s financial inclusion is a lack of buy-in from FSPs. Around the world, many financial institutions, even those whose mission and operations are geared toward financial inclusion, believe that they are already including women as their clients. Indeed, many already target women specifically. Since their portfolio performance and other business metrics are positive, they believe that they do not need to do anything more to effectively serve women. This indicates that even though promoting women’s inclusion and empowerment has been a major focus of the financial inclusion movement for more than a decade, the main message has not been well understood and internalized––that targeting women is not the same as serving women well.

This leaves regulators in a bind. As government officials, they have an interest in advancing women’s financial inclusion for the numerous social benefits it has for women as well as their families. As guardians of financial sector stability, they have an interest in advancing women’s financial inclusion because it diversifies risk in the sector’s loan portfolios. Yet, few regulators have been willing to mandate that financial institutions under their supervision expand outreach to women in the way that many have done for micro-entrepreneurs or smallholder farmers.

Read more at:

Gender Issues in Financial Inclusion Series 5: Policy approaches for promoting women’s financial inclusion (Part 1) | ACCESS Advisory The key challenges regulators face in promoting women’s financial inclusion is a lack of buy-in from FSPs. Around the world, many financial institutions, even those whose mission and operations are geared toward financial inclusion, believe that they are already including women as their clients. I...