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Box IV.1: Examples of Women Dedicated Financial Products in Africa
Box IV.1: Examples of Women Dedicated Financial Products in Africa
Exim Bank (Tanzania) has developed a special product known as the Tumaini Account targeting women clients. The Tumaini account uses the idea that inculcating monthly thrift can provide financial support to women. The Tumaini product takes advantage of the fact that women are good savers, and strive to provide their families with education and healthcare services. Both personal loans and loans to small and medium enterprises are offered under this program using the savings balances in Tumaini accounts as a guarantee.
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Access Bank (Nigeria) has developed “women-friendly” flexible collateral options, such as the pledging of jewelry and equipment, using asset debentures or bills of sale to enable women entrepreneurs to access loans. This program has given out USD 35.5 million in loans and helped 1,300 women open a deposit account. The program also offered training to almost 700 women on financial management skills. The program has worked so well that banks in Rwanda and Gambia replicated the model.
Sero Lease and Finance Ltd (SELFINA) (Tanzania) used innovative techniques to better cater for women. Specifically, SELFINA offers micro-leasing to female clients which in turn allows them to own the assets in the end, and to use it as collateral when they are in need of liquidity. The benefits of micro-leasing are two-fold: a direct benefit, allows women to utilize the equipment for business growth; an indirect benefit, helps women to build a reputation of repayment. SELFINA has about 25,000 female clients.
Source: Global Banking Alliance for Women.
Findex database shows also that women are less likely to pay for health insurance and to use formal saving methods.
Branchless banking and technology-based financial services such as mobile banking have been expanding at a fast pace lately and has helped to reach the unbanked populations, even in rural areas. However, women’s proportion of adults reporting using mobile phones for financial transactions in Africa remains low compared to men (7% compared to 10%). This probably reflects the fact that men often adopt new technology faster than women.
In what follows we shed light on the barriers to financial inclusion of women in Africa and explore the reasons behind the gender related funding gap documented earlier. Considerable
