In This Issue
Spotlight on: Member Performance
This month we’re publishing our 2022 Measuring the Value of the Female Economy report, which shares the aggregate performance of our members in the women’s market and internal gender diversity and inclusion collected through our Female Economy Analytics survey (FEAS). It reveals that we’re close to parity in customer representation, with women making up 45 percent of our combined customer base. Within that lie a number of interesting trends including the role of digital financial services (DFS) in driving women’s financial inclusion (as mirrored in the Global Findex survey) and the role of our fintech members in particular.
The story is more nuanced when it comes to product use. Products per customer, a key performance indicator, was the same or higher for women compared to men in all segments but one: high-net-worth customers. We also saw robust growth in the volume of loans going to women in retail and businesses of all sizes, the latter perhaps in part reflecting efforts to finance WSMEs through the pandemic. However, the overall volume of loans going to women was still just 28% of the total, while to WSMEs it was 19%.
Moving the dial on financing to WSMEs requires multiple levers, including supporting women with a range of non-financial services, adapting loan terms and market signaling—activities our members continue to excel at. This month, we have a fantastic round-up of the actions our members took to mark International Women’s Day, including the issuing of gender bonds and the earmarking of large amounts of capital to finance WSMEs.
Closing the credit gap also requires technological solutions. This month, we look at one such solution as we extend a warm welcome to Finbots.ai, our newest member. Finbots.ai is a B2B fintech dedicated to debiasing credit scoring. Please tune in to our video interview with Sanjay Uppal, an ex-banker turned fintech entrepreneur, who shares how his company is addressing this important issue.
Lastly, we remind you that our 2023 All-Stars Academy kicks off on April 27 and runs for 6 weeks. This is our flagship training program that teaches the A-Z of designing and implementing a women-centered strategy. We encourage members in the early or intermediate stages of their journey to enroll .
We thank all our members for their extraordinary generosity in the many ways they participate in the Alliance.
In community,
