‘DFS key to advance women’s economic empowerment’

Digital financial service (DFS) is crucial to increase the financial market participation of Bangladeshi women.

Experts made the above observation at an international conference on “Digitalization and New Frontiers of Service Delivery: Opportunities and Challenges” organsied by

BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) in Dhaka on Wednesday, said BIGD in a statement.

The DFS hold the potential to advance women’s economic empowerment (WEE) through several pathways, including by generating higher account ownership; facilitating greater opportunities to save or access credit; lowering risks by improving privacy, confidentiality, and safety; strengthening women’s control over their finances; reducing costs of transaction and time, and diversifying economic activities, they said.

The WEE is complex, and its interplay with digital financial services is seldom studied; they mentioned

Bangladesh is a rapidly developing economy facing complex gender dynamics. According to the Global Gender Gap Index 2020, Bangladesh ranks 50th out of 153 countries overall in gender parity, they said.

Women in Bangladesh significantly lag behind men concerning economic participation and opportunity. However, increasing the financial market participation of Bangladeshi women may reduce these inequities.

“Understanding the causal mechanisms between DFS and WEE, as well as ways to overcome barriers to women’s access to DFS, is essential,” said Kym Cole, the WEE-DiFine Initiative Director.

Transaction costs are a barrier to women’s digital financial access, both in Bangladesh and worldwide. Interestingly, evidence suggests that women value transaction cost reductions differently than men.

Identifying the role of transaction costs in women’s demand for DFS can potentially close gender gaps across various economic indicators and ultimately advance women’s economic empowerment.

The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Digital Finance (WEE-DiFine) initiative, housed at the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development at BRAC University in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was created to address such knowledge gaps.