NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

As many as 358 million Indian women (61 per cent) have bank accounts, up from 281 million (48 per cent) in 2014, the biggest jump for “banked” women among eight South Asian and African countries surveyed by Intermedia, a global consultancy.

The survey revealed that more women in India are financially included than ever before, and women closed the gap with men by four percentage points, the quickest among all the surveyed countries.

However, finer details on their participation in the banking system are not available because the government is not releasing data on other financial-inclusion indicators.

“Financial inclusion among women in India and Bangladesh is driven primarily by access to bank accounts while most Tanzanian women rely on mobile money for their financial needs, a trend that was enabled in part by greater mobile phone ownership and ‘text savviness’ among women in Tanzania, compared to India or Bangladesh,” Nathaniel Kretchun, Senior Associate Director, InterMedia, told IndiaSpend.