Competitors invitations later stage fintechs pioneering progressive monetary options for the low-income girls’s market to use; finalists and winner to entry premier fintech networks and sources
NEW YORK, Aug. 3, 2022 – Ladies’s World Banking introduced at the moment the 2023 Fintech Innovation Problem, a world competitors to spotlight and advance options to shut the gender hole via digital monetary providers. Now in its fourth 12 months and the one women-centered fintechs competitors, the Problem will present a platform for later stage fintechs working to deal with the persistent challenges in serving the low-income girls’s market.
In response to the newest World Findex Report, the variety of girls adopting digital monetary providers has risen dramatically since 2017, with the gender hole dropping from 9% to six% in key rising markets. However regardless of these advances, 742 million girls are nonetheless excluded from the formal monetary sector, and ladies are 31% extra seemingly than males to have an inactive checking account.
Digital monetary providers can function an on-ramp for low-income girls to undertake and use a big suite of formal monetary services and products, increasing girls’s decisions and their monetary and financial resilience and empowerment. Low-income girls signify a big, untapped market alternative for digital monetary providers suppliers, notably fintechs leveraging know-how to shut the gender hole in monetary providers.
“To realize the promise of inclusive progress for the worldwide financial system, girls want equal entry to monetary merchandise, providers, abilities and know-how,” mentioned Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Ladies’s World Banking. “Fintechs are uniquely positioned to assist shut the digital monetary providers hole as a result of they’ve the flexibility to supply services and products in a different way and may effectively meet the wants of low-income girls in ways in which conventional monetary providers suppliers can’t or gained’t.”
Functions for the Problem will probably be open from August 3 to September 15. Entry classes embody, however aren’t restricted to:
- Sending and receiving cash
- Credit score for women-led micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
- Security web merchandise (insurance coverage, financial savings and pensions)
- Past cash (monetary and digital capabilities, and different enterprise assist providers)
The highest 4 finalists of the Problem will take part in an in-person pitch competitors subsequent February in Dubai, and be fast-tracked for participation within the Ladies’s Financial Empowerment Accelerator, powered by the Miller Heart for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara College. They may also obtain pitch recommendation and a UX design session. The Grand Prize winner will obtain entry to key 2023 fintech occasions like Level Zero, Elevandi Connects, and the Singapore Fintech Competition, in addition to a speaker invitation at a Ladies’s World Banking Making Finance Work for Ladies occasion.
All female-founded fintechs that make it to the highest 12 of the competitors will probably be chosen for the first-ever Feminine Founders Circle, an unique community of like-minded female-founded fintechs, and will probably be promoted via a strong built-in communications, advertising and media marketing campaign.
“Collaborating within the Ladies’s World Banking Fintech Innovation Problem drove us to be taught extra deeply how we are able to higher serve our girls prospects,” mentioned Rachel Freeman, Chief Progress Officer at Tyme, a 2020 Fintech Innovation Problem Winner. “It gave us world recognition at an important time in our growth into the Asian market and through our current capital elevate, and we acquired useful suggestions from the judges that helped us refine our proposition.”
The highest twelve finalists and Feminine Founders Circle members will probably be introduced on October 26, with the highest 4 finalists introduced on January 9, 2023. The Grand Prize winner of the Fintech Innovation Problem will probably be introduced in Dubai, on February 16, 2023 following the pitch competitors.
The Fintech Innovation Problem is sponsored by the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis (Main Sponsor) and Ernst & Younger LLP (EY US and Advancing Sponsor). Ladies’s World Banking’s core funders are Australia’s Division of International Affairs and Commerce (DFAT), the Swedish Worldwide Growth Cooperation Company (SIDA), and Visa Basis.
About Ladies’s World Banking
Ladies’s World Banking designs and invests in monetary options, establishments, and coverage environments in rising markets to create larger financial stability and prosperity for ladies, their households, and their communities. With a World Community attain of 62 monetary providers suppliers in 35 international locations serving greater than 138 million girls shoppers, Ladies’s World Banking drives influence via its scalable, market-driven options; gender lens personal fairness fund; and management and variety applications. To be taught extra go to womensworldbanking.org.
Media Contact: Kelsey Thompson: kelsey.thompson@porternovelli.com