The world has seen important progress in monetary entry, with 79% of adults accessing an account at a financial institution or comparable monetary establishment. The 2025 World Findex attributes a lot of this progress to elevated entry to cell expertise, together with cell phone possession and web use, with 86% of adults globally now proudly owning a cell phone. Nonetheless, regardless of the progress, have we actually reached the “final mile” for girls?
In lots of communities, the reply is not fairly but. Whilst monetary establishments roll out new merchandise and companies, fundamental entry stays a hurdle. For a lady in a distant village or island, the closest financial institution or ATM is likely to be hours away. On this weblog put up, we unpack a number of the digital and infrastructure obstacles to serving girls clients to handle the “final mile” query of entry to finance.
The lengthy stroll to entry
In Nigeria, 47% of unbanked adults cite distance to a monetary establishment as a key purpose for not having an account. Our analysis discovered that greater than 1 / 4 of economic companies suppliers (FSPs) recognized geographic proximity as a big barrier to serving girls clients.
In different phrases, FSPs perceive that distance is a barrier to girls’s monetary inclusion, however most see the answer (increasing bodily presence) as expensive and difficult. This hole between recognition and motion helps clarify why distance stays an issue even in current occasions. The info on the bottom explains the size. In India, an estimated 52% of the agricultural inhabitants lives greater than 5 kilometers from the closest financial institution department or agent. And in elements of Kenya, girls might need to journey an hour or extra to achieve a banking level, in line with our interview with a senior chief at a business financial institution in Kenya.
For many years, monetary establishments have examined numerous approaches to shut the “final mile” entry hole. In Pakistan, Ladies’s World Banking partnered with JazzCash to increase branchless banking by way of feminine brokers. On the outset, the overwhelming majority of brokers have been males, which made many ladies clients uncomfortable and restricted uptake. By recruiting native girls shopkeepers as brokers by way of the “Guddi Baji” program, the initiative created a extra trusted and accessible channel for girls. Over an eight-month pilot, feminine brokers registered 566 new clients, 42% of whom have been girls, considerably growing girls’s participation in comparison with earlier agent fashions.
Growing the variety of girls banking brokers is essential for reaching girls clients. Past enhancing service accessibility for ladies and men clients, a stronger presence of feminine brokers can open new enterprise alternatives for monetary establishments whereas creating significant profession pathways for girls within the sector.
The hidden value of connectivity
Throughout LMICs, 350 million folks nonetheless dwell in areas with out cell web protection, and girls are 15% much less doubtless than males to make use of cell web. Even when girls dwell inside attain of a cell community, the promise of digital monetary companies usually stays out of attain.
Globally, cell phone possession is excessive, however cell web affordability stays out of attain for a lot of girls, particularly in low- and middle-income nations (LMICs). In keeping with GSMA, the price of an entry-level internet-enabled handset is 23% of a lady’s month-to-month revenue, in comparison with simply 12% for males. Value is not only about gadgets and information–it’s about entry to alternative. Cellular web is a vital enabler of girls’s monetary inclusion, unlocking cell banking, digital funds, e-commerce, and monetary schooling. When girls can’t afford to remain related or depend on digital channels, they revert to money, lacking out on the comfort, safety, and advantages of formal monetary companies. A 2025 survey of economic companies suppliers discovered that 37% recognized excessive cell web prices as a big problem to serving girls clients.
To shut this hole, monetary establishments should deal with connectivity and affordability as core elements of economic inclusion methods. Meaning designing companies that work over low-bandwidth channels like USSD and SMS, or partnering with telecom suppliers to enhance community reliability in underserved areas, or with cell cash operators to supply installment-based fee plans on cellphones.
We’ve made outstanding strides in increasing monetary entry, however the “final mile” stays out of attain for a lot of girls. When cell web is simply too costly, connectivity is unreliable, or the closest agent is hours away, entry turns into a every day wrestle and, due to this fact, not actually solved. Closing this hole means designing digital and bodily infrastructure that meets girls the place they’re.
To study extra about Ladies’s World Banking’s analysis on obstacles to girls’s monetary inclusion, keep tuned for the launch of the microsite coming on the finish of March 2026. The microsite consists of the complete write-up and exemplars on obstacles to girls’s monetary inclusion.
This analysis was made doable with funding from the Gates Basis.
