RBIH whitepaper: Gender and finance in India

• by MSC
• Mar 8, 2022
• 1 min
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MSC collaborated with the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) to publish a whitepaper on “Gender and Finance in India” for its Swanari program. The paper discusses the current landscape of gender and finance in India. It highlights the critical gender gaps in women’s access to and usage of financial services. The whitepaper also shares some good practices and core enablers for closing the gender gap in financial inclusion.

MSC worked with the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH) on a whitepaper on “Gender and Finance in India” for its स्व-नारी (Swanari) program. The paper discusses the landscape of gender and finance in India and highlights the main gaps in gender. Its premise is that applying a gender lens to financial inclusion is essential to understand barriers women face around equal access, usage, and quality of financial services offered. The paper analyzes public data on gender gaps in savings, credit, insurance, and pensions. Using inputs from experts and stakeholders, it attempts to understand key gender-based barriers. The whitepaper arrives at crucial problem statements around access, usage, and quality of financial services for the Swanari program. It also shares some promising innovations, good practices, and stories of female users and financial services providers. The paper ends with a call to move “toward gender-intelligent banking” and shares critical enablers that could catalyze women’s financial inclusion.