In a bid to encourage savings among women, a Lagos-based fintech firm, Herconomy, has highlighted the need for uniquely designed financial and saving products to cater to women’s needs.
This was discussed on Monday at the World Savings Day event organised by Herconomy, themed ‘Women save too’.
“According to the Global Findex 2021 report, there are only 35 percent of women in Nigeria who have a formal bank account, meaning a lot of women don’t have access to credit facilities or financial services, and at Herconomy, we are focused on building a bank focused on women finances and economy,’’ Ifedayo Durosinmi-Etti, founder of Herconomy, said.
Kari Tukur, vice president and head of customer solutions, East and West Africa at Mastercard, highlighted some of the factors hindering financial inclusion for women: low literacy level, connectivity and technological structure.
She said with these problems, women have less digital footprints and are less likely to have access to loans and grants and can only practise savings through traditional means.
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Ara Sadiq, manager, advisory services at African Women World’s Banking, said the reason why account adoption rate is low for women is because most financial products and savings products are not designed for women.
‘‘Women are very dynamic when it comes to savings; they encounter unique barriers and in building saving and financial services for them, it’s really important to consider the nature of a woman,’’ she said.
Sadiq said a lot of women don’t have the privilege to own houses or venture into different investment tools.
‘‘It is necessary to come up with different ways women can save with financial vehicles that work for them, especially one that is liquid and as sustainable as other investing in other tools,’’ she said.
Samra Nwatu, chief risk officer at Sparkle Nigeria, said upbringing plays a huge role in how women perceive money.
‘‘Many times, women are raised to be social welfare and are not raised with a financial mindset. There isn’t so much consciousness to save and even when they do, it’s to be able to do for other people,’’ Nwatu said.
Speaking on financial accessibility to women in rural areas, seamless and simple transactions, tailored services for each demographic, breaking language barriers, community amongst women and data were some of the solutions highlighted to drive the percentage of women with access to financial services higher.
Nwatu said breaking language barriers is such a huge factor for the inclusion of rural women, and contact service centres are only recently adopting speaking other languages.
‘‘One can be educated, whether or not they speak English, and also financial services providers need to realise that Lagos is not Nigeria,’’ she said.
