Authors: ConsumerCentriX Project Team
Area Covered: Global
Date: September 26th, 2023
Through the Financial Inclusion Gender Gap Project, ConsumerCentriX contributed to developing 13 case studies from AFI’s membership countries to provide a deeper understanding of women’s financial inclusion status in each, along with key barriers and enablers.
The case studies are one of the key project deliverables designed to help national financial regulators and policymakers identify highly specific and concrete actions to advance gender-inclusive finance in AFI’s member countries.
Learn more from CCX-supported case studies published for the project:
SOLOMON ISLANDS CASE STUDY
Most Solomon Islanders transact in cash and women especially prefer to save at home, with 53 percent of women reporting that they save in a “secret place at home”. For the past decade, the Solomon Islands government and the Central Bank of Solomon Islands have prioritized financially including the unbanked, specifically identifying women, rural individuals, and informal workers as target groups.
© 2023 (August), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
HONDURAS CASE STUDY
By 2017, the country had achieved a 2.7 times growth in women’s account ownership and 41 percent of women owned a bank account. However, vast swaths of women remain unbanked or underserved by financial services, many of them being unemployed or lower-income working in the informal economy. This case study offers an overview of the current state of women’s financial inclusion in Honduras.
© 2023 (April), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
GHANA CASE STUDY
The improvement can be credited to the financial regulators’ significant investment in digital financial services and mobile banking. Although Ghanaian women are eager to use digital services, they are still marginalized by the formal financial system, and lack tailored products that fit their specific financial and business needs.
© 2023 (May), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
UGANDA CASE STUDY
Outside that realm, women still utilize informal financial services like village savings and loan associations and rotating savings and credit associations. There is an opportunity for improved coordination and collaboration of the ecosystem players under the new national financial inclusion strategy and an explicit focus on women’s access and usage.
© 2023 (May), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
MEXICO CASE STUDY
As the second-largest economy and population in Latin America, Mexico has the resources and institutions to tackle gender financial inclusion thanks to its national financial inclusion approach. Mexico’s Central Bank, Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores has implemented several regulations and initiatives to create an enabling environment for women’s financial inclusion through both digital and non-digital services.
© 2023 (August), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
EGYPT CASE STUDY
The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) led several initiatives that contributed to advancing women’s financial inclusion, reflecting a growth of 210 percent in women’s transaction account ownership. The Egyptian government and CBE are taking steady steps towards more gender equity, economic empowerment, and financial inclusion, in pursuit of an inclusive society.
© 2023 (June), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
PAKISTAN CASE STUDY
Pakistani women are not only severely disadvantaged in terms of education, economic opportunities, and entrepreneurship, but also restricted by the country’s conservative legal framework. These factors directly impact women’s access and use of financial services and will be essential to address to further close financial inclusion gender gaps.
© 2023 (July), Alliance for Financial Inclusion. All rights reserved.
