South Asia
Learn how our efforts have benefitted women and banking institutions in this region.
Usage and Engagement for Underbanked
Despite policy and infrastructure advancements, millions of women in South Asia still face barriers to fully engaging with the formal financial system. These include:
- Limited access to and usage of digital payments, credit, savings, and insurance.
- Low digital and financial capability among women.
- Lack of gender-intentional practices in financial institutions.
- Underrepresentation of women as last-mile banking agents.
- Gender biases in credit underwriting and distribution.
- Inadequate gender-disaggregated data to inform inclusive financial practices.
- Fewer insurance and other financial solutions addressing climate vulnerabilities for women.
How We're Addressing the Problem
Women’s World Banking South Asia is advancing women’s financial inclusion by leveraging India’s digital public infrastructure, working with banks, fintechs, regulators, government bodies and policymakers, and embedding gender-intentional strategies into financial services.
Savings
Partnered with public sector banks such as Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India and Indian Bank, and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) to mainstream formal savings through:
- Gender-intentional banking practices.
- Strengthening the agent network, including BC Sakhis (women agents).
- Expanding Jan Dhan Plus outreach through 43 Regional Rural Banks.
Digital Payments
Collaborated with the National Payments Corporation of India and leading fintechs (Mobikwik, PhonePe, SpiceMoney, LXME) and state rural livelihoods missions (SRLMs) to:
- Promote Unified Payments Interface (UPI) adoption via “UPI For Her” pilots.
- Expand Prepaid Payment Instrument, delinked with savings, to women customers.
- Facilitate the onboarding of women microentrepreneurs as digital merchants for payments.
Credit, Bias, and Enterprise Development
Worked with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE), public sector banks and fintech partners to:
- Facilitate affordable, unbiased credit to self-help-group entrepreneurs in the and state rural livelihoods mission ecosystem.
- Establish an innovative credit product and distribution channel via the cluster level federations under the Prayaas Individual Enterprise Scheme.
- Advocate with national and regional industry financial services providers to avail credit guarantees to unlock credit for women entrepreneurs.
- Build capacity for 100,000 women entrepreneurs through enterprise development training (with London Stock Exchange Group Fund).
- With Urban Company and LXME, we are facilitating mobility credit and financial literacy for urban women gig workers.
Resilience and Insurance
Partnered with SwissRe and the Rockefeller Foundation to:
- Design a Women’s Climate Resilience Facility to close the climate finance gap and support underserved women micro-entrepreneurs with financial tools for sustainable livelihoods.
- Expand access to climate-focused microinsurance.
- Support India’s “Insurance for All by 2047” vision with research and design of simple, relevant insurance products.
Data
Helping our partners to collect, use, analyze gender disaggregated data for gender-intentional products and process design and policy change.
- Collaborated with NABARD to design a Gender Intentional Scorecard (GIS) for RRBs to track and improve women’s financial inclusion across account ownership, digital footprints, and credit usage.
- Jointly with CGTMSE we calculated the macro-economic impact of credit guarantees on credit flow into the market and on jobs and employment.
- Partnered with Union Bank of India to create a Gender-intentional Business Intelligence Dashboard to make informed, data-driven decisions, thereby enhancing banking services for women.
What We Are Learning
- Customized approaches matter: Solutions tailored to women’s behavior and needs encourage adoption and confidence.
- Women agents are catalysts: Strengthening women as last-mile agents significantly boosts outreach and trust.
- Digital inclusion requires more than infrastructure: Enhancing digital and financial capability is essential to increasing adoption of digital financial services.
- Insurance is valued but underutilized: Women value insurance (7.7/10), yet usage remains low due to complex products and poor outreach.
- Gender data drives impact: Gender-disaggregated data helps institutions target and serve women more effectively.
Results We Are Seeing
- 53.4 million women reached across South Asia through our programs.
- 14.88 million women actively engaged in financial services, increasing economic participation.
- 4.35 million women impacted by policy changes resulting from our advocacy.
Our South Asia Team
Kalpana Ajayan
Regional Head
Swati Chowdhary
VICE PRESIDENT, Network, Development and Advocacy
Pallavi T Madhok
VICE PRESIDENT, Advisory Services
Heer Chokshi
LEAD, Communications and Marketing
Sambit Rath
RESEARCH LEAD
Smita Jacob
DIRECTOR, POLICY
Nirmala Vedula
SENIOR Relationship ManagER
Jyotsna Kumari
SENIOR SPECIALIST, ADVISORY SERVICES
Rolina Rohatgi
MANAGER, ADVISORY SERVICES
Richa D
SPECIALIST, ADVISORY SERVICES
Neha Misra
SPECIALIST, ADVISORY SERVICES
Parvej Sheikh
SENIOR SPECIALIST, ADVISORY SERVICES
Varun Dhawan
PROJECT LEAD, ADVISORY SERVICES
Guarav Bammi
RELATIONSHIP MANAGER
For more information contact: Swati Chowdhary, sch@womensworldbanking.org
Our Regional Partners
Financial Service Providers (FSPs)
India
- Bank of Baroda
- Ujjivan Small Finance Bank
- Ananya Finance for Inclusive Growth Pvt. Ltd.
- Friends of Women’s World Banking, India
- Shri Mahila Sewa Sahakari Bank Ltd.
- Kaleidofin Private Limited
- Frontier Markets Consulting Pvt Ltd
- Annapurna Finance Pvt. Ltd (AFPL)
- Union Bank of India
- Indian Bank
- Lendingkart Technologies Private Limited
- Sitara (SEWA Grih Rin Limited)
- Fino Payments Bank
Bangladesh
- Association for Social Advancement (ASA)
- Shakti Foundation
- Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangh (TMSS)
- SAJIDA Foundation
- Green Delta Insurance Company Limited (GDIC)
- Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd (DBBL)
Pakistan
- Kashf Foundation
- JazzCash
- Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company (Private) Limited
Policymakers and Regulators
India
- Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)
- Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission (M-SRLM/ UMED)
- Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance (DFS)
- Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
- Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA)
Bangladesh
- Bangladesh Bank
Research Partners
- Lead at Krea University
- Kantar
- Third Eye
Case Studies
Bank of Baroda
