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Women's Financial Inclusion - how to reach 1 billion women
SDC's Focal Points Employment and Income and Gender Equality organised a Savings & Credit Forum on: Women's Financial Inclusion - how to reach 1 billion women?
Photocredit Selina
Haeny, Zimbabwe, SDC AgriFin Mobile Project, 2017
Having access to financial services matters for
women’s economic empowerment. Internationally renowned experts in the field of
financial inclusion will shed light on how women can be included to the formal
financial sector. How can digitalized delivery of financial services make the
difference for women? What roles play social norms when it comes to women’s
financial inclusion?
Date: Friday, November 2nd 2018 / SDC Berne
>> Programme >> List of references
Presentations:
Video (3 min.): Leverage digital technology to offer financial services to women 
Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO, Women's World Banking
Key takeaways: - A landmark McKinsey Global Institute report finds that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 if the gender gap is narrowed. - Various studies and reports have proven that women are better clients: they repay better, save better, buy insurances and speak positively about their experience to their entourage. - Financial Inclusion contributes to Women’s Empowerment as women who engage in financial services experiment: -Relational change: Decision-making, bargaining power, participation and self-reliance -Material change: Income, Resources, basic needs and earning capacity -Cognitive change: Knowledge, skills and awareness -Perceptual change: Self-esteem, self-confidence, vision of future, visibility and respect - Women face barriers to enter the financial market because of 1) low awareness; 2) lack of data due to little gender-disaggregated data and 3) weak regulatory environment. - Women need convenience, confidentiality and security when entering the formal financial market. Services and products should be tailored around those principles to build a trustful relationship. Digital finance is one of the tool to address women’s needs as it provides convenience, privacy, security and accessibility.
David Cracknell, Global Director for Technical
Excellence, MicroSave
Key takeaways: - The gender gap in financial and social inclusion exists because of lack and / or weaknesses in: offer of products and services, processes and policies, financial education, infrastructure, social and cultural norms, and regulatory systems. - Digital financial services present a promising opportunity for women’s financial inclusion but have their set of challenges: low mobile phone ownership, low knowledge on technologies, lack of trust etc. - The way forward to narrow the gap is by lowering barriers to access for everyone and protecting the vulnerable; by encouraging use of financial services through policies, information, payments and education; and by targeting fintech services aimed at women. - Institutions must incorporate gender into their strategies, analyse engendered data, and then support women’s entrepreneurship, develop adapted products and increase women’s presence within their systems (e.g. female agent) - The regulator must work together with financial institutions to achieve greater and sustainable impact.
Fiona Jarden, Senior Policy and Advocacy Advisor Financial Inclusion, CARE International UK
Key takeaways:
- Social Norms are the shared expectations from society (not individual attitudes); they are constructed by a group; there are consequences if you don’t abide by them, the consequences are not so big if you don’t know people but when you do know people the consequences can be really bad for you. Social norms are really important to understand when it comes to financial inclusion of women.
- Gendered norms translate into expectations on women’s and men’s role, and what is and isn’t acceptable for them to do. This has an impact on women's mobility, unpaid care burden (around three times more than men), concentrated in lower paying, risky jobs, with less control over their income.
- It is recommended that financial inclusion projects follow two main guiding principles: 1) norm aware: Work within existing social norms to address market constraints for women and 2) norm transformative: explicitly work to change social norms through direct engagement of women and the broader community- to have a greater impact.
- Business cases have proven that including the couple provides better results: women are empowered, husbands are proud, violence is reduced etc.
- Based on social norms analysis, interventions are designed (e.g. Household dialogue alongside the implementation of a digital sub-wallet) Veyrl Adell, Head of Women’s Financial Capabilities and Inclusion, Financial Sector Deepening Zambia
Key takeaways: - Studies show that financial skills that are acquired early in life may translate into sound financial behaviour in later years but financial awareness among the young is low. - From birth, boys have the right to inherit land while girls do not. What does that tell us: One is born with collateral to their name, the other is born with a ‘sales tag’ – for lack of a better word. The gap starts from the tender age of 10 years when girls and boys experience varying social, biological, and economic roles and needs. - Invest in Girls from as early as 10 years: this is where is a greater potential for intergenerational poverty reduction and women’s economic empowerment. - From the age of 10-15: at this age girls usually do not have access to finances or income. There is an opportunity to provide them with necessary skills, safe spaces, mentorship and gatekeeper involvement as a way of helping them transition into responsible young adults. - From the age of 16-25: these young women start to access money for their personal necessities. At this age girls who have had earlier access to financial information plan around their money and save.
Q&A sessions and panel
Key takeaways:
- The power of media (social media, videos, cartoons etc.) and communication campaign is extremely strong and should be used more to induce social norms changes. - Men should be part of projects’ initiatives. - Information market is the future of financial services alongside technology. - MFIs must look forward digitization and partner with fintech otherwise their future will be compromised. - Before reaching financial inclusion, gender inequalities must be tackled first. - WFI can also do harm, it is important to access carefully the actual societal situation (research, observe, pilot, adapt etc.). - Women also have a role as mothers, in the sense that they should raise girls and boys in equality. - Collaboration with the private sector is key, as well as with government, specially to ensure social protection.
Relevant News
 03 September 2018
Here is what has happened so far:
(1) As mentioned in a previous newsletter, a CAPEX of this topic has started at the beginning of this year, (2) 50 projects were gathered, analysed and clustered in gender responsive / sensitive categories. (3) 10 e-consultations were held with the most gender responsive women’s financial inclusion projects and, (4) a webinar and an e-discussion were held from the 4th to the 6th of September. (5) The slides of the webinar and the summary of the e-discussion will be shared soon!
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