The digitization of financial services has brought tens of millions of people into the formal financial system, but there is more to be done to move beyond making banking accessible to enabling full financial inclusion. Applying a gender intelligent lens to all stages of the sales funnel is key to this shift, and it starts with disaggregating customer data.
Setting the benchmark on this front is South African-based TymeBank, as shown in its latest submission to our annual Female Economy Analytics Survey (FEAS). At the end of 2023, among TymeBank’s 8.4 million customers, 54 percent were women and 76 percent were low-income. Within its business lending portfolio, women SMEs accounted for 41 percent of loan applications, 44 percent of loan customers and 34 percent of loan volumes. These levels are above FEAS benchmarks across the Alliance network in 2022.
TymeBank’s business model – which solves for cost, logistics and emotional barriers to financial access and use – will be showcased along with other Alliance Hackathon winners during our Annual Summit in London, including at the prestigious fintech dinner hosted by HSBC Innovation Banking on 4 June.
By submitting their FEAS data before the 3 May deadline, TymeBank is now in the running for one of the Champions of the Female Economy Awards to be presented at the Annual Summit. We ask all members to submit their FEAS data before this deadline to also be considered for an award.
The Alliance’s Gender Data Taskforce – a peer learning group to help improve data collection practices – came together this month and examined the topic of identifying women-owned/led businesses within consumer portfolios. Alliance member Bank al Etihad explained that it flags accounts where volumes and frequency of transactions are high, and then looks to see if payments are mainly with merchants. Once determined to be a business, relationship managers call the account holder to confirm and informs them that they will be shifted to the business portfolio where they have access to the bank’s range of products and non-financial services designed to support business growth. Businesses are classified as women-owned/led if they meet Etihad’s definition of 50%+ ownership or 20%+ ownership where at least one decision maker is woman. It is great to see once again, an Alliance member solving for another piece of the gender data puzzle.
April also saw the launch of the prestigious We Finance Code Community of Champions, made up of public and private sector Code Anchors from each implementing country. With 120 attendees from 21 countries, the event was a tremendous success and bodes well for Code adoption. Members of the Community are invited to join the Alliance learning hub where they can find session recordings, tools and resources to support them in their journey to build the Code. We look forward to seeing them in person at our next Code learning event, the UK Study Tour in London on June 6th, following the Annual Summit.
This month, we extend a warm welcome to our newest member Global Bank. We interviewed Juan P. Barragán, Senior VP of Personal Banking who shares Global Bank’s vision for supporting women’s markets in Panama.
Lastly, we remind members to get in quickly to register for the Alliance’s 2024 Annual Summit as we are almost at capacity.
We thank all our members and strategic partners for investing in women and for the many ways they participate in the Alliance.
In community,
