Women must be encouraged to use bank accounts, not just open them – 2nd Dep. Governor of BoG

The Second Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) Elsie Addo Awadzi has underscored the need to intensify Gender Inclusive Finance to encourage more women participate in Ghana’s financial ecosystem.

She is of the view that women must not only be encouraged to open bank accounts but must be incentivized to use the accounts to grow their businesses.

Speaking as the chaired Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s (AFI) Gender Inclusive Finance Committee, Ms. Awadzi stressed that more financial policies must be designed to encourage women use their financial accounts to access affordable loans.

According to Ms. Awadzi “a lot of progress has been made in getting women to open accounts. We now need more action in promoting women’s effective usage of these accounts; be it traditional bank accounts, electronic wallets, mobile wallets and the like. We want to see more women saving, building their financial histories and accessing credit to grow their businesses, so they can play an active part in our economies.”

She stressed that” there’s an array of financial services and products out there that can improve women’s and their families’ and communities’ lives, but getting women to use them effectively to scale their businesses should be the goal, as well as getting the message across that embracing these products and services will make women more resilient to shocks like climate shocks and pandemics.”

Ms Awadzi optimistic that the recent launch of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion’s Gender Inclusive Policy Model will go a long way to accelerating progress.

She added that the policy model provides a useful framework that will guide regulators and policymakers as they seek to advance women’s financial inclusion and narrow the gender gap.

Background

The gender gap in Gender Inclusive Finance has grown exponentially now at 6% compared to 9% in 2011. Women are now more economically active and accessing formal services.

However, this new phase in economic liberation has seen some shortcoming to the fully untapped advantages in the banking sector.