Explore the latest global and regional insights from Women’s World Banking’s work in policy, leadership, women’s entrepreneurship, gender lens investing, and more.
Scroll down to download the report. At the intersection of financial inclusion and product design lies an often overlooked yet vital question: What about women? Despite the growing recognition of the importance of women in economic development, financial products are too often designed without the unique needs and experiences of
By Ker Thao, Maria Serenade, and Elwyn Panggabean Globally, the emerging youth population presents a potential for economic growth. However, youth in developing countries also still face barriers to access financial services, such as three of 10 million Cambodian young adults who remain financially underserved. Youth savings, in particular, has
Adekunle Alarapon (ACIB, CDEF) is Head of Retail Segments for Wema Bank Plc, where he holds responsibilities for Agent Banking & Financial Inclusion, Gaming & Entertainment Business, Workplace Banking and Female Gender (Sara) Propositions. Mr. Alarapon has more than 20 years of banking experience in operations, control, commercial, retail and
As Women’s World Banking President and CEO, Mary Ellen Iskenderian, puts it: “The global average hides the starker reality of the situation women face. In some countries it will take over 100 years to achieve gender equality in financial access without further intervention.” Even more, the World Economic Forum estimates
Women’s World Banking partnered with Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) from 2016 to 2019 to optimize financial and business support services for women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Kenya. An accompanying research effort evaluated the effectiveness of program implementation and the resulting outcomes for KCB’s MSME customers, especially women.
By Sophie Theis, Qualitative Research Specialist at Women’s World Banking Qualitative user research (also known as UX or user experience research) is a suite of strategies and methods that are essential in our work to design financial services for low-income women in emerging markets. User research infuses the design process
Women’s World Banking undertook research to determine why women aren’t saving actively in a bank and tested prototypes to change that behavior.
Behavioral design is an important new tool in helping the financial services industry see women (and low-income women in particular) as a viable market segment.
Using our women-centered design approach, we worked with ideas42 to figure out how to get more women to sign up for JazzCash mobile accounts through referrals.
What our digital financial services peer exchange participants learned about defining the problem from behavioral design firm ideas42.
How does Customer Centricity help financial service providers serve low-income women profitably and sustainably?
How does Branding and Marketing help financial service providers serve low-income women profitably and sustainably?
Our Product Development director explains the crucial elements of design to ensure financial product that works for women.
The success of women-focused products depends on front-line staff resonating with the objective to serve women as much as it does having leaders’ buy-in.
Financial services providers in Pakistan risk losing out on an untapped market opportunity by continuing to believe myths about serving the women’s market.
Diamond Bank (Nigeria) added more options to the BETA Savings mobile app but clients weren’t using them. How user experience testing solved this mystery.
How can a world leader in gender equality have trouble closing the gender gap in financial inclusion? What we found in Rwanda.
A co-authored an op-ed on the implications of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s Denarau Action Plan on financial inclusion for women around the world.
Our team applied user experience testing to optimize mobile banking services for low-income women in Nigeria.
Our team trained staff at two partner institutions on our research methodology, building their capacity to gather and use insights to better serve women.
Without a thoughtfully designed and well-executed sales training for your staff before roll-out, your innovative new product will go nowhere.
Kashf Foundation’s research team blogs about their findings from an impact assessment report of their services in 2015.
Kashf Foundation guestblogs on their approach to client-centricity: a singular focus on clients’ needs and welfare, powered by research and client feedback.
Women’s World Banking network members participating in a virtual learning community compiled key insights on successfully marketing to women to share with the wider financial services industry
The gender performance indicators help financial institutions determine whether they are serving women well, and with what outcomes.
This paper is a case study of how one institution, ADOPEM (Dominican Republic), fared post-transformation, examining both the benefits and challenges of transforming.
