Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President & CEO, Tom Jones, EVP & COO, Women’s World Banking explain various factors that make financial products meaningful to women:
Manoj Agrawal: Describe 2 or 3 specific financial products and their target customer segments that have the highest rate of adoption by women customers among the lending partners that Women’s World Banking (WWB) works with.
Mary, Tom: Women across markets require a variety of financial products to meet their needs. Women’s World Banking develops solutions to enhance products including banking accounts, business loans, digital payments services, and insurance.
For accounts, it is critical to not only ensure women can open accounts in their own name, but that they have the knowledge, capability, and incentives to use that account. When developing solutions to encourage account activation, financial service providers (which can include lenders, commercial banks, fintechs, or others) typically target existing women customers who have an account but it is dormant or only used to receive government payments.
Women-led MSMEs require credit to sustain and grow their businesses. By tailoring credit products, alongside a relationship banking model and/or business development services, financial service providers can better reach and engage this under-served segment. Relationship banking involves building long-term relationships with clients to understand their needs better, while business development services include training, mentoring, and support to help businesses grow and succeed. These non-financial services are crucial as they provide the necessary support and guidance that can significantly enhance the chances of success for women-led MSMEs.
Women, especially migrants (both domestic and international), need ways to safely and securely send money. Financial service providers can ensure that low-income women have the digital and financial capability to use digital remittances, offering lower cost and more convenient ways to send money to friends and family.
Many women (either employed or self-employed) do not have any mechanisms to protect their income when they face a health emergency. Hospital cash insurance is a product that can offer women a cash payment per day in the hospital, offsetting lost income and associated healthcare costs.
We have found that all these products have high rates of adoption when they are designed with women in mind – with marketing that resonates with women, channels that are accessible and convenient, terms and conditions that make sense for her, and building her knowledge and skills.
Which organization offers such products, in which geographies?
We have seen applicability for all these products across markets, but have found particular success with account activation in South and Southeast Asia, with insurance in Africa and the Middle East, and with business loans and digital payments globally. Specific organizations that we have partnered with to offer these types of products include:
- Accounts: Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Indian Bank, and over 43 Regional Rural Banks under NABARD in India. BRI and BNI in Indonesia.
- Business Loans: SIDBI, Annapurna Finance, and LendingKart in India, Kenya Commercial Bank.
- Payments: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), SpiceMoney, MobiKwik, in India, WING in Cambodia and Thailand, DANA in Indonesia.
- Insurance: PNB Metlife in India, Microfund for Women in Jordan, Lead in Egypt, Al-Amana in Morocco, Uganda Finance Trust in Uganda, FCMB in Nigeria.
- Remittances: Access Bank in Nigeria.
What are the key differentiators that make those products a commercial success?
For accounts and payments, by investing in marketing and education that promotes use cases that resonate with women, and gender-sensitive agents, our solutions drive active use of accounts and payments services which has commercial value for the financial service providers. These initiatives increase both the frequency and volume of transactions, and lead to higher balances among engaged customers.
While women-led MSMEs are often perceived to be riskier customers, our evidence finds that if women business customers are supported, they are equal or better repayers. By providing tailored financial products, digital financial capabilities, and comprehensive support, we empower women entrepreneurs to succeed.
Collaborating with Women’s World Banking, Jordan based Microfund for Women has introduced programs like health insurance tailored to women’s needs. This initiative has significantly increased clients’ financial literacy, including their understanding of insurance, which has enabled MFW to pilot additional product. Similarly, Pula, an agricultural insurtech operating in Africa and South Asia, highlights the transformative impact of providing insurance to smallholder farmers. By reducing risks for lenders, Pula’s approach has led to lower collateral requirements and interest rates for these farmers.
What role did WWB play in the creation and roll out of those products?
Women’s World Banking partnered with each of these organizations through our women-centered design process. This includes conducting a diagnostic on the institution and focus product, conducting research with the target segment of customers, designing a solution to enhance the financial product or channel and ensure it will meet the needs of women, and providing support in the pilot and rollout of the solution.
Briefly describe the work that WWB is currently doing with 2-3 lenders who are new partners of WWB. What are the expected outcomes?
WWB is collaborating with SIDBI to better align with the needs of women entrepreneurs across multiple regions in India. The project involves women from cluster-level federations who are now digitally processing Prayaas loans for a more seamless experience for beneficiaries. The expected outcomes include quicker loan processing, ease of access, and increased financial growth for women entrepreneurs.
WWB’s collaboration with KoinWorks includes enhancing their credit model to better serve women entrepreneurs. This includes providing gender training to address barriers women face in accessing credit, developing a pilot onboarding process tailored to women customers, and offering added-value services like business training. Additionally, we have worked on marketing strategies to build trust among women customers and provided recommendations to improve the product process for women-led businesses. Our data analysis has also aimed to increase awareness of financing options, ultimately enhancing KoinWorks’ digital credit offerings and improving customer engagement.
We partnered with FSPs around the world, including KWFT and FCMB, to provide business and digital skills trainings to their staff, who in turn trained their women customers on topics such as digital tools, credit, and bookkeeping. The goal of this program was to ultimately provide women MSMEs better tools and strategies to expand their businesses and repay their loans with these institutions. In India we are doing similar work with the Maharashtra and Bihar State Rural Livelihoods Missions.
What are the major milestones for WWB in 2024? What are the key plans and target milestones for 2025?
In 2024, we hit several major milestones. Perhaps the most notable is our over-arching indicator of women reached cumulatively through our programs, which hit 82 million, far surpassing our organizational target of 54 million. This is in large part due to our success in replicating the Jan Dhan plus solution in India, which was adopted at scale by Union Bank of India, Indian Bank and recently by 43 regional rural banks. We expect that we will achieve 100 mn women reached in 2025, 2-3 years ahead of our original goal of reaching this scale by the end of our 10-year strategy in 2027.
Another key milestone was enabling 29 policymakers to implement policies to deepen financial inclusion. We have been building out our policy advocacy work over the past few years, engaging over 94 policy institutions across 49 countries, through our flagship ‘Leadership & Diversity Program for Regulators’ and direct advisory.
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