Competitors invitations later stage fintechs pioneering progressive monetary options for the low-income girls’s market to use; finalists and winner to entry premier fintech networks and sources
NEW YORK, Aug. 3, 2022 – Girls’s World Banking introduced at present the 2023 Fintech Innovation Problem, a worldwide competitors to spotlight and advance options to shut the gender hole via digital monetary providers. Now in its fourth 12 months and the one women-centered fintechs competitors, the Problem will present a platform for later stage fintechs working to handle the persistent challenges in serving the low-income girls’s market.
Based on the newest World Findex Report, the variety of girls adopting digital monetary providers has risen dramatically since 2017, with the gender hole dropping from 9% to six% in key rising markets. However regardless of these advances, 742 million girls are nonetheless excluded from the formal monetary sector, and girls are 31% extra possible than males to have an inactive checking account.
Digital monetary providers can function an on-ramp for low-income girls to undertake and use a big suite of formal monetary services, increasing girls’s selections and their monetary and financial resilience and empowerment. Low-income girls signify a big, untapped market alternative for digital monetary providers suppliers, notably fintechs leveraging know-how to shut the gender hole in monetary providers.
“To attain the promise of inclusive progress for the worldwide financial system, girls want equal entry to monetary merchandise, providers, expertise and know-how,” stated Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO of Girls’s World Banking. “Fintechs are uniquely positioned to assist shut the digital monetary providers hole as a result of they’ve the flexibility to offer services in another way and may effectively meet the wants of low-income girls in ways in which conventional monetary providers suppliers can’t or gained’t.”
Purposes for the Problem can be open from August 3 to September 15. Entry classes embrace, however usually are not restricted to:
- Sending and receiving cash
- Credit score for women-led micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)
- Security internet merchandise (insurance coverage, financial savings and pensions)
- Past cash (monetary and digital capabilities, and different enterprise help providers)
The highest 4 finalists of the Problem will take part in an in-person pitch competitors subsequent February in Dubai, and be fast-tracked for participation within the Girls’s Financial Empowerment Accelerator, powered by the Miller Heart for Social Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara College. They may also obtain pitch recommendation and a UX design session. The Grand Prize winner will obtain entry to key 2023 fintech occasions like Level Zero, Elevandi Connects, and the Singapore Fintech Pageant, in addition to a speaker invitation at a Girls’s World Banking Making Finance Work for Girls occasion.
All female-founded fintechs that make it to the highest 12 of the competitors can be chosen for the first-ever Feminine Founders Circle, an unique community of like-minded female-founded fintechs, and can be promoted via a sturdy built-in communications, advertising and media marketing campaign.
“Collaborating within the Girls’s World Banking Fintech Innovation Problem drove us to be taught extra deeply how we are able to higher serve our girls clients,” stated Rachel Freeman, Chief Development Officer at Tyme, a 2020 Fintech Innovation Problem Winner. “It gave us international recognition at an important time in our enlargement into the Asian market and through our latest capital increase, and we obtained invaluable suggestions from the judges that helped us refine our proposition.”
The highest twelve finalists and Feminine Founders Circle members can be introduced on October 26, with the highest 4 finalists introduced on January 9, 2023. The Grand Prize winner of the Fintech Innovation Problem can be introduced in Dubai, on February 16, 2023 following the pitch competitors.
The Fintech Innovation Problem is sponsored by the Invoice & Melinda Gates Basis (Main Sponsor) and Ernst & Younger LLP (EY US and Advancing Sponsor). Girls’s World Banking’s core funders are Australia’s Division of International Affairs and Commerce (DFAT), the Swedish Worldwide Growth Cooperation Company (SIDA), and Visa Basis.
About Girls’s World Banking
Girls’s World Banking designs and invests in monetary options, establishments, and coverage environments in rising markets to create better financial stability and prosperity for girls, their households, and their communities. With a World Community attain of 62 monetary providers suppliers in 35 nations serving greater than 138 million girls shoppers, Girls’s World Banking drives impression via its scalable, market-driven options; gender lens personal fairness fund; and management and variety packages. To be taught extra go to womensworldbanking.org.
Media Contact: Kelsey Thompson: kelsey.thompson@porternovelli.com