Women's financial exclusion global trends

In 2021, I became the first woman to head a unicorn in Israel, AKA Startup Nation. In many parts of the world, women are excluded from even the most basic financial services, so leading a fintech company is far from their reality. United Nations data estimates that 3.8 billion women live in the world, 50% of which are adults. According to the World Bank’s Global Findex Database, 1.4 billion of those 1.9 billion adult women, are unbanked. That’s 73.65%. Visit that statistic again. It represents a disturbing gender gap in financial access, with women being far less likely than men to have bank accounts or access formal financial services. This financial exclusion has personal impact. It diminishes women’s economic empowerment by restricting access to education and limiting their potential for personal growth and independence. It makes women more financially dependent, and therefore, more vulnerable. There's economic impact, too. Research by McKinsey highlights the economic loss due to financial exclusion of women, noting that closing the gender gap in labor force participation could add trillions to global GDP. Financial inclusion isn’t just a matter of equality – ensuring the same opportunities for all. It’s a matter of equity - ensuring women have the tools and access they need to fully participate in the global economy. That’s where technology enters the picture to level the field. The rise of mobile banking is a great example of innovation enhancing financial inclusion. According to a report by the International Finance Corporation, mobile money accounts are more popular among women in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, where access to traditional banking is limited. Various fintechs provide financial literacy resources, helping women understand financial products, budgeting, and saving strategies. Other solutions include AI-driven platforms that offer personalized recommendations and advice, empowering women to make informed financial decisions. Aside from personal apps and solutions, fintechs can facilitate community-based lending and saving initiatives, allowing women to support each other through group savings or microfinance schemes, fostering a sense of solidarity and shared purpose. This International Women’s Day’s theme is "accelerate action". In my mind, nothing accelerates action like innovation. As we mark International Women's Day, let’s advocate and innovate to enhance financial inclusion for women worldwide. #IWD2025 #financialInclusion Papaya Global

Women entrepreneurs continue to face significant barriers in accessing credit, even when they run profitable businesses. 📊 IFC - International Finance Corporation’s new report, Cracking the Credit Code, examines how alternative data and AI-driven credit models can help expand access to finance for women and underserved borrowers. It shows that when women gain access to credit through alternative data and AI-driven models, they often perform as well as, or better than, men. 📈 Key insights from the report: 💡Women borrowers often show strong repayment behavior when assessed using alternative data models 💡Several fintech lenders report that women receive higher credit limits over time 💡Women borrowers are more likely to access repeat loans and continue engaging with formal finance 💡Access to credit can increase confidence in applying for future financing and expanding businesses. Drawing on global market analysis, firm case studies, borrower-level data, and interviews with industry leaders, the report explores how new credit models can help expand access to finance to women and underserved borrowers. 🎯 Expanding access to finance is central to The World Bank Group’s target to provide 80 million more women and women-led businesses with access to capital by 2030—recognizing that expanding inclusive financing is critical to unlocking women’s entrepreneurship, economic participation, and job creation at scale. 🔗 Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/g8GbZjnf #WomenEntrepreneurs #FinancialInclusion #Fintech #AccessToFinance #AccelerateEquality Sophie Sirtaine Namita Datta Jaylan ElShazly Karan Singhal Emanuela Di Gropello Amy Luinstra Jessica Schnabel MONTSERRAT GANUZA Anushe Khan Jose Etchegoyen Hector Shibata Salazar Carlos Sánchez Reboiro

The greatest wealth transfer in history isn't coming. It's already here. And the system still isn't ready. The The Rise Report of Female Entrepreneurship, published by Female Founders Rise, put it plainly: if women were supported to set up and scale businesses at the same rate as men, it could unlock a £310 billion opportunity for the UK economy. Joanna Jensen from The Times and Sunday Times landed on the same truth: women are accumulating and inheriting wealth at an unprecedented rate and the infrastructure around them is only beginning to catch up. To understand where we're going, we need to be honest about where we've been. For decades, financial decision-making defaulted to male counterparts. Women who were raising families, building careers, and managing households weren't absent from wealth — they were deprioritised by the systems designed to serve it. The education, the access, the seat at the table: structurally withheld, not naturally absent. That's changing. But slowly. > Women will control $34 trillion in US investable assets by 2030, nearly double today's figure (McKinsey) > $105 trillion is being passed down to heirs through 2048 — women, who live on average 6 years longer than men, are the primary recipients (Cerulli Associates) > Women control $60 trillion in assets globally today — 53% of it remains unmanaged The funding gap is structural and it's getting worse. > All-women founding teams received less than 0.5% of total VC raised in Q2 2025 > In the UK, less than 2% of venture capital goes to female-founded businesses > By Series B, female representation in funded deals drops to just 16% So what's actually changing? Banks and wealth managers are waking up — creating dedicated women's wealth teams and tailored investment programmes. Why? Three reasons that have nothing to do with charity: > The wealth transfer is landing, and much of it in women's hands. > Client retention — if a woman hasn't been involved in the relationship, she takes her assets to someone she trusts when circumstances change (divorce, bereavement, inheritance) > Women invest differently: longer time horizons, lower risk appetite, stable returns, family wealth planning, and genuine appetite for impact and ESG As women become increasingly educated, involved, and empowered in financial decision-making, that will flow directly into greater support for female-led businesses and investments. We're not there yet — but the trajectory is undeniable. At Ankh Impact Ventures, we don't wait for the industry to catch up. We support female founders at the precise moment they're ready to scale — with capital, connections, and conviction. The funds and firms that recognise women as equal partners in this story won't just be doing the right thing. They'll be making the best investment of the decade.

Half the world's population faces invisible walls to access financial services. Why do 1.7 billion women remain financially excluded, and what's actually working to tear these barriers down? This paper goes beyond the usual talk of “access.” It unpacks the real constraints: discriminatory laws, lack of digital ID, algorithmic bias, and social norms that penalize women for being financially independent. It also highlights what’s working: → Governments digitizing social transfers into women’s accounts → Financial products designed with women’s lived realities in mind (not just repackaged for pink logos) → Bundling credit with childcare, insurance, or training → Collecting sex-disaggregated data to design smarter policies If you're in development, policy, fintech, or gender advocacy, this is your signal to move beyond micro-loans and think systems change. Because access isn’t empowerment if the system itself keeps women out. 💾 Save this post 🔔 Follow me for similar content #Gender #FinancialInclusion

Gender gaps in financial account persist in 65 countries, with women 13 percentage points less likely than men to have accounts! #GlobalFindex2025 shows real progress—77% of women now own an account globally—but it also makes clear that access alone isn’t empowerment: persistent gaps in usage, digital connectivity, and agency are holding women back. Closing these gaps requires moving from counting accounts to enabling meaningful, sustained use—by tackling restrictive social norms, expanding affordable digital access, linking financial services to income-earning opportunities and market access, and scaling product innovations that fit women’s lives. At CGAP, we call for action to mobilize integrated, gender-intentional approaches—backed by gender-disaggregated data, policy reforms, and strategic financing—so that financial inclusion translates into women’s economic prosperity, resilience, and agency. Read more by Arisha Salman, Gayatri Murthy at: https://lnkd.in/dvuBw5cf

When climate finance 💰 overlooks women, resilience becomes an unfinished equation. Because the real question isn’t how much money is available. It’s who gets to use it, and for what ⁉️ Climate resilience is built on more than field-level adaptation. It’s about how institutions design, deliver, and govern access to finance. That was a key message in the FAO report “Empowering Women in Egypt’s Livestock and Dairy Subsectors: A Gender-Transformative Approach to Climate Resilience and Economic Inclusion.” One of the strongest recommendations? 👉 Expand tailored financial services and credit for women in agriculture. Here’s why that matters ⤵️ Climate finance is often imagined in billions 🤑 global pledges, large-scale projects, and infrastructure funds. But resilience often starts with smaller, local decisions: 👉 a woman farmer 👩🌾 taking a loan to buy solar-powered cooling, 👉 a cooperative accessing microcredit to reduce waste, 👉 a dairy producer investing in drought-resistant feed. Yet only 2% of rural women in Egypt have access to agricultural credit. That’s not a funding gap. It’s a systems gap. When finance mechanisms overlook women’s realities, they weaken the very resilience they aim to build. And this isn’t unique to Egypt. As the Gender and Climate Finance report shows, global funds still struggle to translate gender commitments into measurable results with limited data, scarce dedicated funding for women-led initiatives, and uneven accountability for outcomes. Working across government, development, and academia, I see this gap often the space between frameworks and lived experience. Designing finance that actually reaches women, and trusts them as economic actors, is where real transformation begins. Because climate finance that includes women isn’t just fairer. It’s more effective. It builds stronger markets, communities, and systems of resilience. 💡 The strength of any climate system depends on who it’s built to serve. (The timeline below, from the Gender and Climate Finance report, tracks how far international climate funds have come in integrating gender and how far there’s still to go.) #climatefinance #womenempoerment #womeninagriculture #financialinclusion #sustainability #genderequality #developmentfinance #climateaction ODI Global Climate Vision Consulting

20 years ago, analysts predicted that by 2025, women would own the majority of the UK’s wealth. The opposite has happened. Today, women’s share of UK personal wealth has fallen to 45% (per ONS data) - with the average woman holding £78,000 less than the average man. Why? The barriers are depressingly familiar: → A 13% gender pay gap (even wider for mothers). → A pension gap of 48% - with men aged 60-69 holding £150k more on average than women of the same age. → Career breaks, caring responsibilities, and part-time work exclude many women from auto-enrolment into pensions. → Lower levels of investment confidence - 52% of women have never held an investment outside their workplace pension. The story is not about women working less hard or performing less well. Girls still outperform boys at GCSEs. Women are founding businesses in record numbers. But our systems - childcare, pensions, investment, taxation… are still stacked against them. That’s why I’m incredibly proud of the work I do with initiatives like the Invest in Women Taskforce Without systemic change, women will continue to be wealth underachievers relative to their talent, contribution, and potential. We’ve known the problem for decades. And the numbers tell us: optimism alone won’t close the gap, action will.

Men are four times more likely to participate in a workplace share scheme than a woman. Getting company equity has the potential to be life changing. So why are women missing out? 💸 Confidence & financial literacy: Women are often underserved by financial education and less actively targeted by investment communications. 💸 Career progression: Men are still more likely to occupy senior roles where awareness of, and access to, these schemes is higher. 💸 Pay disparities: With men on average earning more, they often have more disposable income to invest. As a result, women miss out on wealth-building opportunities, further widening the gender wealth gap. If organisations truly want to make share schemes inclusive, they need to: 👉Proactively communicate benefits in clear, accessible ways. 👉Track participation by gender and act on the insights. 👉Review eligibility criteria and minimum contributions. Workplace share schemes have the potential to be powerful tools for financial empowerment, but only if they’re designed and promoted inclusively. It's why Octopus Money has launched share scheme education sessions to address these inequalities.

West Africa is digitalising its trade systems. The majority of its cross-border traders are not in the design room. Women constitute an estimated 60-80% of informal cross-border traders in our region. Ghana Statistical Service's maiden Informal Cross-Border Trade Survey revealed that informal trade accounts for 61.2% of commerce with Togo, 55.7% with Côte d'Ivoire. Most of these traders are women moving perishable goods, livestock, and agricultural products across borders daily. Yet as Pan-African Payment & Settlement System - PAPSS payment systems, digital customs platforms, and AfCFTA e-documentation protocols take shape, women trader associations report minimal involvement in system design decisions. The Cross-Border Women Traders Association's call for a Women Traders Border ID Card reflects a fundamental gap: the people who understand border realities best are designing solutions from the outside. The stakes for getting digital systems right are considerable. Consider perishable goods spoilage: digital fast-tracking could reduce the delays that cause tomatoes and fish to rot at borders. But smartphone-only interfaces could exclude the majority who use basic mobile phones, leaving them in slower manual queues. Digital documentation creates paper trails and accountability for harassment and informal payments. Yet systems available only in English or French exclude traders who operate in Twi, Hausa, Yoruba, or Wolof. Digital transaction records could build the credit histories women traders lack for formal financing. Or platforms requiring smartphones and bank accounts could deepen financial exclusion instead. From our recent engagements with the Cross-Border Women Traders Association, several practical solutions have emerged: trader ID systems designed for basic mobile technology; multi-language interfaces including major West African languages; transaction logging that builds credit profiles even for small-value trades; formal advisory seats for women trader associations on national e-commerce committees and regional system design bodies; training programmes structured around market hours and women's operational contexts. The AfCFTA's projected continental market cannot reach its potential while excluding the majority of grassroots traders who actually move goods across borders. World Bank survey data shows over 40% of traders along West African corridors face bribery exposure. Digital systems designed with women's input could reduce this vulnerability. Systems designed without them risk automating existing inequities. The design choices being made now in Accra, Abuja, and Abidjan will shape whether digital trade narrows or widens the gender gap in regional commerce for years to come.

Over the years, I’ve had countless conversations with women colleagues, team members, friends, and even young professionals just starting out. The stories are remarkably similar: many take on a wide range of responsibilities, both at home and at work, yet don’t always have the same exposure, confidence, or support when it comes to long‑term financial planning. Women who earn, save, and contribute every day, yet rarely see themselves as “wealth creators.” These conversations have stayed with me because they reveal a critical aspect: women are not lacking ambition or capability; they’re navigating financial systems that could be better designed with their realities in mind. This context made our latest research particularly meaningful to me. On #InternationalWomensDay, I’m pleased to share #EY India’s new report with LXME: Unlocking Her Wealth: The Untapped Economy, introducing India’s first Women’s Financial Prosperity Index (WFPI) — a first-of-its-kind measure to understand how women are moving from financial access to actual financial ownership. India’s WFPI score of 28.1/100 underscores a reality many of us have witnessed firsthand. Despite increased access to financial products, long-term wealth creation remains a challenge. The data highlights: Women earn ₹73 for every ₹100 earned by men, with many in informal roles. Only 8.6% invest in mutual funds or equities. Just 14.2% hold pensions or provident funds. Women begin investing about five years later, and typically with half the initial amount. Women’s retirement wealth stands at only 60% of men’s. And yet, bridging these gaps could unlock a ₹40 lakh crore GDP-equivalent opportunity for India. For me, this report reinforces something I’ve learned through experience: when women are supported in making confident financial decisions—when they see themselves not just as earners but as investors and owners—the impact is profound. It shapes their sense of security, expands the choices available to them, and opens pathways for the next generation to step forward with greater freedom and possibility. As we mark #IWD, the message is clear: women’s financial prosperity is not just an economic objective—it is a foundation for progress. Our task now is to build systems that recognise women as investors, creators, and owners of wealth, and to ensure every woman has the opportunity to realise her full financial potential. https://lnkd.in/dfwzjggK