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Financial institutions understand the value of data, but many overlook the importance of sex-disaggregated data (any data on individuals broken down by sex). Without this data, it is difficult to identify gender gaps in banking portfolios, to design products and services that meet women’s distinct needs and preferences, and to assess impact on potential revenue.
By mainstreaming the collection and use of sex-disaggregated customer-level data, Alliance members build the case for further investment and scale of their Women’s Market Programs.
Reporting this data to the Alliance allows us to provide valuable benchmarking. Reporting nationally supports a more inclusive financial services sector in the country. But just as building Women’s Markets programs is a journey, so too is building institutional capacity to collect and use reliable, high-quality, sex-disaggregated data. It takes time, commitment, and resources—as well as guidance on how to start, and the progression of next steps. Here is where Alliance membership makes a difference.
Insights from Alliance members’ sex-disaggregated data
The Alliance is a globally recognized leader in elevating the dialogue about the value of gender data and advancing the collection and use of high-quality sex-disaggregated financial data in business decision-making. We do this by generating our own data-based market insights though the Female Economy Analytics Survey and offering practical tools and training to build gender data capabilities.
Our members have exclusive access to the Alliance’s Women’s Markets Data Analytics—the only industry-wide repository of Women’s Markets data. The digital platform collects, aggregates, analyzes, and benchmarks supply-side data from members serving hundreds of millions of customers, identifying growth opportunities, and helping members make the business case for serving women.
The Alliance also partners with other important players to increase the availability and use of high-quality, sex-disaggregated data to drive women’s financial inclusion at the global and national levels, as with our partnering with the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) to implement the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code (WE Code). The Alliance serves as the technical advisor to the Women’s Financial Inclusion Data Partnership (WFID), which also includes the InterAmerican Development Bank, Data2X, IFC, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, EBRD and OECD. After leading six country diagnostics, the Alliance produced The Gender Data Playbook for Women’s Financial Inclusion, a step-by-step guide for financial ecosystem stakeholders –including regulators and financial institutions–on how to boost the systematic collection of high-quality, supply-side gender data.
In addition, we offer a variety of services to build institutional capacity to produce and use sex-disaggregated data.
This immersive and holistic training is among the Alliance’s most highly valued services. Designed to give financial services professionals the skills and tools they need to build a women-centered strategy to serve Women’s Markets effectively and become the employer of choice for women, the Academy’s curriculum includes topics ranging from understanding the business case to structuring women customers’ and employees’ value propositions, to using sex-disaggregated data to monitor and refine strategies, and beyond. The training features presentations from highly respected practitioners—senior executives from other member institutions, who share their experiences building sustainable and successful internal and external women-centered strategies.
The Alliance Business Case Tool is an interactive dashboard that aggregates the latest publicly available data on women’s financial needs and behaviors. It is designed to equip financial services providers with insights to quantify the business case for targeting women in their market and identify opportunities to expand the reach of existing Women’s Markets programs.
The Annual Summit is the Alliance’s flagship event—the premier global gathering of thought leaders, banks, fintechs, insurance companies, development finance institutions, investors, venture capitalists, regulators, and other financial ecosystem stakeholders. Through the years, the Summit has built a well-deserved reputation as the MUST-ATTEND event for all those involved in advancing women’s financial inclusion.
Summit participants benefit from formal sessions featuring senior practitioners and subject matter experts on how to optimize the potential of Women’s Markets and women’s leadership. The networking is equally valuable, as attendees share experiences and uncover new opportunities to tap into the growing global female economy.
Ask the Expert gives members access to real-time guidance from Women’s Markets experts. Modeled on one of the most popular sessions of our acclaimed All-Stars Academy, the Coaches’ Corner, Ask the Expert features live, interactive webinars, anchored by some of the most successful Women’s Markets practitioners in the world. Delivered quarterly to members only, the webinars cover timely topics related to enhancing women customers’ value propositions, with time set aside during each session for participants to get their questions answered.
Each year, members share data through the Female Economy Analytics Survey. Each reporting member receives a customized benchmarking report that analyzes their performance against other financial services providers in the network.
Members use their benchmarking reports to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of their Women’s Markets programs, gain and sustain internal buy-in, and identify new offerings for women across segments.
The Gender Data Learning Series is an in-depth training that equips financial service providers and policy makers with the skills to develop or enhance their women-centered strategies using sex-disaggregated data. Sessions feature data use cases, tools, and best practices sharing by an international cohort of like-minded financial services professionals working with data.
The Data Task Force meets quarterly for facilitated webinars to explore trends and topics related to collecting, analyzing, and using sex-disaggregated financial data. The Task Force is designed for financial service provider personnel who frequently work with data, such as business intelligence professionals, to bring up challenges they face—and learn how peers in the network have overcome them.
The Alliance’s Mentoring Program is a six-month, one-on-one program that connects experts from Alliance members that have mature Women’s Markets and DEI programs (mentors) with Alliance members that have less-developed programs (mentees) who are working towards a specific objective, such as deepening the value proposition, ramping up sex-disaggregated data collection, or embedding the program fully throughout the institution.
The Alliance has partnered with the Women Entrepreneur’s Financing Initiative (We-Fi) to roll out a WE Finance Code Community of Champions (COC) in support of the code’s implementation. Aimed at policymakers and financial inclusion stakeholders, the COC convenes National Code anchors and offers practical guidance, tools, use cases and the opportunity to share best practices. Members gather for four 90-minute webinar sessions and one in-person study tour per year.
The WFID Community of Champions was established as part of the Women’s Financial Inclusion Data Partnership (WFID) in 2022. It is a platform for financial policy stakeholders from around the world to share best practices for increasing the collection and use of supply-side data to drive women’s financial inclusion. This community currently involves financial regulators and ecosystem stakeholders from Bangladesh, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Honduras, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Peru. Members gather for two webinar sessions and one in-person meeting per year.
The Resource Hub includes content developed by the Alliance aimed at helping members enhance their gender data capabilities. This includes materials available exclusively to members, such as our annual survey, Measuring the Value of the Female Economy, which provides analytics on performance trends among institutions serving Women’s Markets, as well as publicly available content such as our In Brief, The Power of Women’s Markets Data: a How-To Guide. The hub also features member case studies, along with a curated list of related materials published by relevant third parties.