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Women in the economy are proving to be a force to reckon with as they make up 40 percent of the world’s workforce and secure $20 trillion in consumer spending. In an effort to continue supporting women and their financial accessibility, the Global Banking Alliance for Women recently announced it will gather $4.3 billion in capital for women-owned businesses throughout the world.
The Global Banking Alliance for Women strives to create more women’s wealth by working with financial institutions. Together, the banks develop comprehensive programs that provide women with the tools needed to succeed. The organization also works with the Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action, which collaborates with global leaders to solve urgent world issues.
As mentioned in the previous blog post, “Lenders More Cautious Toward Women Small Business Owners,” many financial institutions are more likely to deny a loan to women business owners due to lack of confidence, low credit scores, and more. According to the International Financial Corporation, it is estimated that a credit gap of almost $300 billion exists for registered small to medium-sized women-owned businesses.
The new initiative to financially support women business owners will overcome barriers by shifting power from 15 member banks and provide women with the skills and knowledge necessary to maintain a thriving business.
The Global Banking Alliance for Women’s Commitment to Action’s plan, called “Banking on Women: Scaling the Women’s Market Program,” helps women by:
- Using newly developed sex-disaggregated data collection to prove the business case for serving women
- Balancing knowledge transfer to support fast-paced adoption by other banks
- Taking advantage of partnerships
The banks that are involved with the program are: Westpac Banking Corporation (Australia), Royal Bank of Scotland (UK), BLC Bank (Lebanon), Itau Unibanco (Brazil), BHD Leon (Dominican Republic), Rawbank (Democratic Republic of Congo), HBL (Pakistan), Banco Nacional de Costa Rica, Postbank (Uganda), Chase Kenya, Centenary Bank (Uganda), Garanti Bank (Turkey), UT Bank (Ghana), TEB Bank (Turkey), and Banco G&T Continental (El Savador).
Each bank is committed to assisting women-owned businesses in several ways including sharing data and results from their Women’s Market programs. Over time, the information will show financial institutions how much of a profitable impact women make.
Eventually, women-owned businesses will benefit from the program immensely since the $4.3 billion investment is set to support 900,000 women small business owners and their employees. Moreover, an additional 2 million women will have access to capital and financial services.
To view the entire press release, click here.