A new generation of financial infrastructure is arriving fast, and it has real implications for women’s financial inclusion.
Stablecoins and their national counterpart, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), are digital currencies pegged typically to the major fiat currency (USD, Euro, etc.), removing the volatility associated with un-backed cryptocurrencies. Much like mobile money platforms before them, they have the potential to reach women long under-served by traditional banking. Indeed, the assumption that cryptocurrencies are primarily a tool for the affluent or tech-savvy is already being challenged by the evidence on the ground.
At the Alliance’s Ask the Expert session in late February, three experts in the space — Irina Chuchkina of Wallet in Telegram, Karen Mathiasen of the Center for Global Development (CGD), and Paul Wong of the Stellar Development Foundation — unpacked what gaps these technologies are filling for women and what it will take to scale impact. Here are four key takeaways:
- Stablecoins offer an inflation-proof savings alternative
In countries with high inflation, women are protecting their savings by converting them from their fiat currency into major international stablecoins backed by more stable currencies. As Wallet in Telegram’s Irina Chuchkina put it: “Stablecoins basically become a form of savings; a digital form for many women to save their earnings and hedge against inflation.” Once on the platform, women’s behavior skews toward savings, yield accounts, and real-world assets like tokenized gold.
Some Alliance members are already integrating stablecoins into their offerings. For example, GoTyme in the Philippines recently launched PAX Gold (PAXG), a fully backed tokenized gold product embedded within its mobile banking experience. Around 3,100 users purchased PAXG shortly after launch, and their behavior points toward accumulation rather than short-term trading, suggesting goal-oriented investment patterns often observed with women. The numbers are early, but the signal is clear: when digital platforms make stable, inflation-hedged savings and investment products accessible, women engage.
- The remittances opportunity is huge
The global average cost of sending remittances is 6.5 percent of the transaction amount, and as high as 20 percent in parts of Africa[1]. Women make up roughly half of all remittance senders and most recipients globally, which means the cost of transfers falls on them.
Stablecoins can help lessen that burden. Paul Wong of the Stellar Development Foundation shared findings from a Stellar study that found blockchain-based transfers cut fees from above 5 percent to below 3 percent on the US-Colombia corridor.
Legacy remittance transfers giants like Western Union and MoneyGram are now beginning to use stablecoins themselves, Mathiasen noted, “because they see the writing on the wall.” She also pushed back on the perception that stablecoin adoption skews male: “The further down you go on the income category, the smaller the gender gap. In a lot of these places, women are comfortable using stablecoins. So, the idea that this is primarily a tool for men is a bit of a misperception.”
- Gender intelligent design can unlock mass adoption
Many of the women who would benefit most from using stablecoins are on low-end phones with expensive data. Often, these devices are shared with spouses; an issue in contexts where financial privacy is a matter of personal safety. This doesn’t prevent their adoption of digital currency–as long as solutions are designed with them in mind. The fundamentals of gender-intelligent design for fintechs apply here: building products that address real needs, meeting women where they are, simplifying onboarding processes, encouraging engagement, and de-biasing algorithms.
Wallet in Telegram offers one model: financial services are embedded directly into a messenger app already in use, with no extra download required. Features like hidden balances and biometric locking are built in, enabling security from financial abuse. Another example shared by CGD’s Karen Mathiasen is Hassan Pay, in Afghanistan. She says this is doing well with women because “it gives them a chance to have a wallet that is just theirs,” and states that “autonomy is another very important feature of stablecoins.”
- The building blocks for WMSME financing are in place, but regulatory reform needed for scale.
Stablecoins can also help build credit histories for informal micro- and small-to-medium-sized businesses (MSMEs), which could unlock access to finance for millions of women-led businesses. As Stellar’s Paul Wong explained: “We effectively treat the stablecoins as a form of money. We disburse and collect loans via stablecoins, and that allows us to create an on-record credit history for women.”
So far, development institutions seem to be the early movers in this space. The UN Development Program has launched two stablecoin-based loan products––Freedom Pay in The Gambia and Koala Pay in Papua New Guinea––that make loan disbursements and repayments in denominations too small for traditional banks to service profitably.
Scaling, however, requires legal and regulatory overhead costs, which are roughly the same whether issuing a $2 million or a $500 million facility.
The bottom line: Women are already using stablecoins and CBDCs to safeguard savings from inflation, send and receive money, and access financing; and they will do so at higher rates as these products become more broadly available and fit for their needs. To see more emerging examples from around the world, click here.
Our next Ask the Expert session on April 23 will focus on customer service/user experience (CX/UX) that work for women. Alliance members interested in registering for the event should email peerlearning@financialallianceforwomen.org.
[1] UN, 2025
