The GBA is pleased to announce the launch of its Women’s Markets Analytics Platform. As the only network of banks focused exclusively on the Women’s Market, the GBA is uniquely positioned to serve as a global repository of bank data on serving women. The potential outcomes of this initiative are immense. First and foremost, it enables us to build a strong quantitative business case for serving women as a distinct customer segment. Second, it enables a more nuanced understanding of the behavior for women as consumers of financial services, so further product and service innovation can occur. Third, while we increase the use of sex-disaggregated metrics among banks, we will work towards building a more standardized set of KPIs around women. This in turn allows for benchmarking and on the aggregate level, measurement of how well the sector is doing in general in targeting women. The participation of our members in this exercise is a true win for each other and for the industry as a whole.
In 2013, with the support of McKinsey & Company, the GBA piloted our Data Analytics Platform with a sub-set of member banks with the goal of understanding both the indicators being tracked as well as the performance of women as customers. The analysis suggests that a strong quantitative case for serving women can be made. This was complemented by a survey of all GBA member banks to understand what KPIs are tracked and to identify common indicators. The results were encouraging:
- 90% of survey respondents disaggregate data by sex.
- 80% of respondents track women SME outreach indicators; 70% track risk levels by gender; 60% track product diversity metrics; and 50% track the profitability of their Women’s Market program.
- Members’ definition of women owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are relatively consistent.
- Sharing of Best Practice on data collection and metrics, and support in increasing the awareness of the importance of sex-disaggregated data among senior management, were widely cited as critical by respondents.
Based on the aforementioned, the GBA Data Analytics Platform survey was designed. This was fielded to all member banks in January 2014 with the intent to capture results for the most recent financial year-end. One third of our members have already submitted the data and we are optimistic about securing data from the second third. The final third are new members with nascent programs who are all adapting their MIS’ and data capture processes so that next year they will be able to submit robust reports.
As we all know, what is not measured does not get done. Through the Data Analytics Platform, the GBA is playing a significant role in closing the data gender gap on women and the economy.
