In the lead up to our Annual Summit, we’ve been busy getting the latest insights on course corrections needed to accelerate our impact on the female economy, including reimagining the fintech sector to be gender intelligent. So far, it seems the same factors that have inhibited the incumbent financial services sector to take a strategic approach to the women’s market—lack of awareness of the opportunity and assumptions that being gender neutral is sufficient to capture the market —are accentuated in fintech. The good news is that fintechs are ahead of incumbents on some fronts; for example, they are more able to disaggregate their customer data by sex. But they are behind in using this data to advance solutions and build market share. To catalyze action, we are hosting an eHackathon two weeks before the Summit to encourage fintech startups to solve different challenges our members pose. Winners will be announced at the Summit and we look forward to game changing solutions.
Another focus of the Summit is the future of work and course corrections required to build truly inclusive and diverse organizations. We’ll be asking industry leaders whether the expected bifurcation in the workforce—between those that choose to work remotely and those who don’t—will impact career progression. And if many of those impacted will, in fact, be women. The financial services sector has still a long road to equal career advancement but many Alliance members are well ahead of the curve. During the Summit, we’ll also share our newest How To Guide on Becoming the Employer of Choice for Women, highlighting many of our member best practices to help institutions continue on their road to diversity.
We’ll share the latest trends on delivering non-financial services at scale, including a new foundational piece of research by IFC and FMO, and discuss the power of sex-disaggregated data for market development, as well as how to course correct to avoid data bias. Some of this is teed up in our resource of the month: A Data-Driven Path to Women’s Financial Inclusion, which shares insights from data scientists, data aggregators, financial services providers, investors and Women’s Financial Inclusion Data Partnership (WFID) members on the new frontiers of gender data in becoming the financial institution of the future. Although it’s virtual, we’ll announce our 2020 Championing the Female Economy Award winners, and try to mimic the party atmosphere! For all this and more, we encourage you to mark your calendars for our 2020 Annual Summit.
This month we extend a very warm welcome to the BAC Credomatic Group, as our latest regional member. BAC Credomatic is the leading financial services group in the Central American region in terms of assets, portfolio, and deposits. Our relationship with BAC Credomatic goes back to 2015 when BAC Credomatic Costa Rica joined the Alliance, followed by BAC Credomatic El Salvador in 2016. We are delighted to now welcome the entire BAC Credomatic Group—adding 4 new countries: Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—to the Alliance. We interviewed Zairy Leiton Muñoz, BAC Credomatic’s Latam Regional Sustainability Manager, to learn about their regional efforts as they seek to accelerate their impact on women across Central America.
And last, but by no means least, our network news roundup shares the latest course corrections, endeavors, and accomplishments from our members and stakeholders.
Thank you all.
In community,
Inez
