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Mobile money boosting women's financial inclusion
Mobile money transaction: There is invaluable potential in the role that technology can play in the credit market. Mobile money is boosting women's financial inclusion.
What you need to know:
- The Global Findex Database, 2021, shows an improvement in narrowing gender inequalities in access to finance.
- It indicates that the gender gap in account ownership across developing economies has fallen to six per cent from nine per cent, a sign of more women with savings accounts.
Ms Sarange Nyabuto, a grocer in Kebirigo, Nyamira County, has used M-Shwari to save for the past five years.
“I have never had a bank account. I have always used M-Shwari since I started my business in March, 2017,” she says.
On a good day, she says she saves Sh200.When the profits are low, she sets aside an average of Sh50.
“My savings have enabled me to access loans without the trouble of seeking collateral or having to travel back and forth to the banks to get loans,” she explains.
“I started with a loan of Sh2,000, which, over time, has increased to Sh35,000. When I don’t have enough school fees for my son, I just take the loan and commit to repaying,” adds the mother of one, who is the head of her household.
She says that at the height of the Covid-19 crisis, her earnings slumped by 80 per cent, but she was able to sustain herself and her son with the savings in the e-wallet.
Ms Nyabuto presents an example of improved women’s financial inclusion across the world as echoed in a recent report by the World Bank.
Gender gap narrowed
The Global Findex Database,2021, which looks into the financial inclusion, digital payments, and resilience in the Covid-19 age, shows an improvement in narrowing gender inequalities in access to finance.
It indicates that the gender gap in account ownership across developing economies has fallen to six per cent from nine per cent, a sign of more women with savings accounts.
Mobile money, it says, is an enabler of women’s financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa as it is a driver of account ownership and use of accounts through mobile payments, saving, and borrowing.
“For women, accounts can enable financial independence and strengthen economic empowerment,” it notes.
In the Philippines, for instance, women who saved in their personal savings accounts with the banks increased their household decision-making power.
In some instances, they are able to shift their spending to household goods relevant to their needs, such as washing machines.
Similarly, in India, the report indicates that direct payment of benefits to women’s accounts raised their control over finances and incentivised them to find employment. While in Kenya, women who have savings accounts are able to spend 15 per cent more on nutritious foods.
At the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, France, last year, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said: “Innovation in financial services in Africa offers an opportunity for a record scale up of financial services and products that can be made available to women.”
