Bridging the Gender Gap: Promoting Women’s Financial Inclusion

Women are still disproportionately excluded from the formal financial system and make up more than half of the world’s unbanked population. According to the 2014 Global Findex, 58% of women had an account compared to 65% of men. This gender gap has persisted at 9% for developing economies, despite progress to advance financial inclusion. A gender gap is equally apparent for women-owned businesses, who predominantly remain in the informal economy which restricts their access to bank accounts and credit from formal financial service providers (FSPs). Even those women-owned SMEs operating in the formal sector face a significant credit gap, which the International Finance Corporation estimates is approximately USD 2.87 trillion, making up 30% of the total credit gap for small and medium enterprises.

This publication comprises a set of toolkits, guideline notes, case studies, a survey report and an action plan from the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) Network to help narrow the gender gap in financial inclusion.