Agent banking raises financial inclusion of women

Financial inclusion of women has increased significantly because of agent banking in one year, from a little over 2.20 lakh female accounts in 2019 to nearly 40.76 lakh in 2020, according to the Bangladesh Financial Inclusion Forum.

The number of male account holders in the agent banking system was about 29.78 lakh in 2019, which also increased to 52.82 lakh accounts in 2020.

The agent banking system has played a vital role in the financial inclusion of rural women, experts said at a discussion on "Accelerating women participation in financial services through women financial inclusion policies" on Monday.

Quoting Bangladesh Bank data, Shahanaj Pervin, central bank's joint director for the financial inclusion department, said by 2020, the number of mobile financial services (MFS) accounts for women was 4.76 crore, which a year ago was 3.92 crore, while for men the number rose to 5.15 crore from 4.03 crore of a year ago.

"In Bangladesh, women were lagging behind men in economic inclusion at 29%," she said,  quoting a 2017 World Bank study in her keynote speech at the event organised by a2i-UNDP Aspire to Innovate and Bangladesh Financial Inclusion Forum.

In South Asia as a whole, economic inclusion of women is 64% and men 75%, while globally it is 65% and 72% respectively, the central bank official compared.

"For women's economic inclusion we need to have a separate focus on women in each policy measure, and develop women friendly products other than ensuring low risk work environment creation, financial literacy, mass awareness, and regular monitoring of their progress," she said.

Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Md Abul Bashar said, "Lack of financial awareness, low asset holdings and income, financial illiteracy, and social and religious attitudes are the main barriers to women's financial inclusion."

He said, "Gender gap in financial inclusion will be narrowed down in the country with Bangladesh Bank having set up a unit dedicated to providing financial services to women entrepreneurs."

Bangladesh Bank will conduct a baseline survey for the next five years focusing on women's financial inclusion under the existing National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS-B), he added.

Professor of economics at Dhaka University Selim Raihan said, "We should remove institutional gender economic gaps. We also have to create structural economic job opportunities like that in the garments sector, otherwise we will not be able to narrow down the economic gender gap."

Senior Director of Brac, KAM Morshed, said, "Recent data based on bank accounts of women do not reflect the true state of economic inclusion. The real inclusion of women in the financial sector is much lower than the number of accounts suggest."

Snigdha Ali, program officer of the FSP (Financial Services for the Poor) Country Team, said, "Agent banking and digital banking in rural areas is helping in the rise of women entrepreneurs in the country. It is playing a big role in giving women strength – economically and socially."

a2i digital financial service lab program manager Tohurul Islam moderated the webinar panel discussion, for which The Business Standard was the media partner.