Women entrepreneurs across the developing world often face the same roadblock: lack of capital.
Without access to finance, women are excluded from full and productive participation in the global economy. A growing number of Asian countries, however, are taking steps to ease the process—but significant hurdles still remain to improving women’s access to finance.
In China, for instance, in interviews with International Finance Corporation (IFC), women entrepreneurs say loan officers don’t treat them with dignity or may claim they aren’t knowledgeable about the banks’ products and services, making women feel unwelcome at banks.
In the Philippines, women entrepreneurs say they prefer pawnshops to banks because they receive loans almost instantly, with very little paperwork. Unlike banks, the pawnshops also accept moveable assets as security, which makes it easier for women to borrow.
Similar problems persist in Indonesia.
