Women in emerging economies lack access to formal financial services

Bankable Frontiers Associates has released a report titled, "A Buck Short: What Financial diaries Tell Us About Building Financial Services That Matter To Low-income Women." The research report, sponsored by Omidyar Network, explores why women in emerging economies don't access and use formal financial services to the extent of their male counterparts. The report identifies leveraging women's social networks, tailoring tools to manage day-to-day transactions, and creating new digital, branchless platforms as steps that are needed to better cater to the 280 million women who are currently excluded from India's formal financial system. Between 2013 and 2015, the financial gender gap in ownership of savings accounts has reduced from 17 to 11 per cent in India. But more can be done, as women's exclusion persists across income and education levels in the country, with 50 percent of women who earn more than Rs 167 per day and 45 per cent of women with a college education being still financially excluded. Further, the report says that even though the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana has helped reduce the financial gender gap by 20 per cent since its launch in2015, India still registered an eight per cent discrepancy in access to financial services between men and women and a 14 per cent difference in usage.