cat/womens-entrepreneurship-finance
To help boost women’s access to financial services, VisionFund International, the microfinance arm of World Vision, launched the Women’s Empowerment Fund (WEF) in 2016. The fund’s aim is to build women’s resilience by expanding financial access and delivering high quality credit, savings and insurance products developed with women, especially mothers, in mind.
The latest numbers from IFC show the SME finance gap for female entrepreneurs in developing countries is a staggering US$1.48 trillion.
Women in Africa are more likely to be in the labor force than women in other regions. But female-owned businesses typically operate in more crowded markets, they have fewer employees, lower average sales, and less value-added. New research shows that female entrepreneurs can build larger and more profitable companies when they operate in male-dominated sectors. Meet some of these African women who are breaking the mold and venturing into construction and manufacturing.
DURBAN - Women’s Day and Women’s month are not only a tribute to our contribution to the struggle against apartheid but an affirmation of our ceaseless pursuit of gender parity and equity. According to the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report, South Africa was ranked 19th overall. However, in terms of the active economic participation of women and opportunities available for women, our country is ranked 91st and for educational attainment, South Africa is ranked 72nd globally.
Daniel Fah, the co-founder and chair of the Virangana Project, aims to connect disruptive Indian women entrepreneurs seeking to establish themselves in the startup economy with mentors, business services and potential investors in Australia.
Questions were answered during a session that was part of the Future Asia Business Summit, which the City of Sydney hosted over two days, under the theme was ‘Sydney thriving in a smart Asian century’.
When a woman wants to start or grow her own business, the odds of securing a business loan are heavily stacked against her. This affects women like Yeo from Ivory Coast, who was unable to take out a loan for her farming business because, as a woman, she did not own any land that the bank required as collateral.
Data says 80 percent of women-owned businesses with credit needs are either unserved or underserved. This is equivalent to a massive $1.7 trillion financing gap. In this piece, name asks for financial institutions to stop asking for collateral.
Itaú Mulher Empreendedora was created precisely to support providing better conditions for women to leverage their businesses, using financial services in accordance with their needs. By connecting women and understanding their needs, motivations and barriers, we become capable of joining them to create management tools, inspiration and networks for their businesses’ development, in addition to developing a more inclusive economy. This report will discuss Itaú's path thus far and show how they have developed their methodology and initiatives.
Mastercard is helping share the stories of the women across the U.S. who are contributing over $3 trillion to today’s economy and opening over eighteen hundred businesses every single day. Today the company announced the launch of a national advertising campaign that puts the spotlight on women business owners who are driving impact. Mastercard is also furthering its commitment to enabling equal funding opportunities for underserved communities including women small business owners and would-be entrepreneurs.
In South Africa, there is a $49 billion unmet financing demand for women entrepreneurs. Corporations and banks can collaborate with women-owned enterprises and provide solutions to bridge the financial gap.
In this IFC fact sheet, learn the key challenges faced by women entrepreneurs, how partners are collaborating for progress and ideas for action.
This report from Kantar shows that financial services organisations could be missing a £130bn opportunity – by not winning over women. Download our Winning Over Women report to find out how UK financial institutions are failing to connect with female customers at each stage of the buying journey, from advertising to offerings.
The report indicates financial service providers in the U.S. are missing out on nearly $800 billion by not serving women nor marketing directly to them.
