The question of women's empowerment in society is critically linked to their inclusivity in the formal financial sector. That means, they are able to make decisions both in family and workplaces about the use of finance. From that point of view, the rate at which they are using the banking services including holding of deposit accounts with banks and other financial institutions provides an insight into how far the financial sector is becoming inclusive of women in Bangladesh. Similarly, the number of women borrowing from banks is yet another indicator of their financial independence based on their increasing ability to spend the money so borrowed in meeting family-related expenses or for business purposes.
Going by the data provided by the Bangladesh Bank (BB), in five years between 2019 and 2024, the number of deposit accounts held in commercial banks by women rose from 33.45 million to 55.32 million. Those numbers were 30 per cent and 35 per cent respectively of the total number of deposit accounts in the banks held by individuals in 2019 and 2024. Clearly, it marks a steady growth in the number of female-held deposit accounts by about 1.0 per cent annually during the years under consideration. But a still better performance was recorded when it came to the number of female-held loan accounts which more than doubled during the period under review. Obviously, it points to their increasing ability to access bank credits, use those and repay with interests. Since opening up the bank credit facility for women has been a part of the BB's national strategy to include women in formal finance, the rate of women's participation in making use of such facility as evidenced from the above-noted records is no doubt commendable. Such interventions by the BB at the institutional (financial) as well as policy level is likely to help reduce the gender gap in the use of financial services.
However, the pure number of women using certain bank services does not tell the whole story about addressing the gender gap in the use of formal finance. In fact, increase in female literacy has been playing a contributing part. Unfortunately, those in charge of sanctioning loans in banks are more prone to advancing credits to female clients who are better at the paperwork involved in obtaining a loan from the bank. But someone good at documentation does not necessarily mean she is a good entrepreneur. In truth, many unlettered women both in urban and rural contexts have been found to be gifted entrepreneurs. So, it is important that the operators of a bank or any other financial institution dealing with credit should have the motivation to help female clients who have the necessary entrepreneurial skill but lack the literacy to do the required paperwork. To assess the creditworthiness of their less privileged female clients, the bank officials in question will be required to communicate with such customers with an open and unprejudiced mind.
It is evidently a welcome development that the central bank has already established dedicated desks styled Women Entrepreneurs Development Units (WEDUs) and Women Entrepreneurs Dedicated Desks (WEDDs) at different banks and financial institutions. What is more, the said, units are learnt to be playing a facilitating role for the potential female entrepreneurs. As many such female borrowers are engaged in the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), they would require collateral-free loans as well as opportunity for refinancing and quota privilege for wider access to formal credit. It is reassuring that the said facilities are already available at the bank desks in question. It is expected that dedicated efforts will also be in place to overcome the existing social, cultural and institutional barriers to make formal credit more inclusive for scaling up female entrepreneurship to a sustainable level.
