The New Year’s Resolution Every Financial Institution Must Make in 2018

Focusing on the women’s market is good for the bottom-line. Women across the world are often the household financial managers and key decision-makers for household purchases. In the financial services industry where women represent a market opportunity of 1.1 billion, it’s a segment every financial institution can no longer afford to ignore.

Focusing on women can also have a paradoxical effect; that of reaching more male clients. Women’s World Banking’s own experience has shown that designing products and services with women in mind result in products that appeal to women and men, but not the other way around. When else can you expand outreach to the broader market by focusing on a particular segment?

For the past forty years, Women’s World Banking has worked with financial institutions that have recognized the value of serving the women’s market. We have helped pioneering cooperatives such as SEWA Bank in India, nation-wide microfinance institutions such as Fundación delamujer in Colombia to large retail banks such as Diamond Bank in Nigeria develop individual loans, microinsurance, youth and adult savings accounts that meet women’s needs delivered via bank branch, agent or straight to their mobile phones.

We have also advised international organizations and governments on how best to design and implement macro-level policies that support women’s financial inclusion.

Six reads to make this New Year’s Resolution a reality

So if your institution is looking for the next big thing, look no further. The women’s market can be your differentiator, your market growth opportunity, your portfolio quality booster… or all three.

While we’d love to work with every single financial services provider that has resolved to serve women, there is only fifty of us at Women’s World Banking and thousands of you. That’s why we make sure to gather our lessons learned into case studies that can help guide your transition into a women-focused institution.

Here are a few to get you started:

• Individual Loans: Individual Lending for Low-Income Women Entrepreneurs: An Inclusive Approach
• Women-Led SMEs: Global Best Practices in Banking Women-Led SMEs
• Savings: Digital Savings: The Key to Women’s Financial Inclusion?
• Youth Savings: Building a Sustainable Youth Savings Proposition: Lessons from Banco ADOPEM
• Microinsurance: Health Microinsurance: An Inclusive Approach
• Regulatory Policy: Policy Frameworks to Support Women’s Financial Inclusion