By Pallavi Madhok, VP, Advisory Services, South Asia, Women’s World Banking and Dilip Modi, Chairman, Spice Connect
Women’s digital financial journeys are starkly different than those of men; their learning curve is steeper, and confidence-building takes time and consistency. In our “UPI for Her” project with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), we sought to understand the barriers and motivations behind women’s use of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s primary digital payments platform.
In our research, we developed the archetype of a “Cautious Balancer”, a woman who is typically a homemaker or an informal worker who either receives a monthly lump sum to run the household or earns a small income (such as through tutoring or working a blue-collar job). These women are adept at managing household finances (albeit primarily with cash) and own bank accounts. While they are savvy with using smartphones, engagement with digital payment apps is low and cautious; they are not confident using these apps independently and feel the need for assistance.
Cash gives them a sense of control, while digital money appears to be fungible and fluid. For many women, their savings are kept secret. These savings are vital for their family’s wellbeing, which makes them highly protective of them. This is also why many women hesitate to link their savings to the wider digital financial ecosystem through UPI.Our theory of change, then, was that for Cautious Balancers to become active UPI users, they must be offered security features in payments apps that give them a sense of control over their transactions, with initial onboarding and in-person learning support.
Building confidence through a sense of financial control
Enter our partnership with Spice Money, India’s pioneering rural fintech company, which offers the feature of a Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) that allows users to preload money onto their digital wallet and use those funds for transactions. Unlike debit cards or UPI, which are linked to a bank account, PPIs allow transactions without touching her bank savings. PPIs are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India to ensure protection and security. In essence, while UPI allows real-time payments, a PPI facilitates preloaded payments. A PPI user can make online purchases, pay bills, and transfer funds peer-to-peer.
Women perceive PPIs as safe and private since the digital transactions there need no direct link to a savings account. In our pilot in Mathura, located in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh, we encouraged women to get onboarded on the Spice Pay Wallet. We ensured a guided and supportive onboarding through Spice “Adhikaris”, or company agents on the ground, and helped them through the first few transactions.
Phygital onboarding results in active users
A strong local agent network is highly effective in breaking through gender social norms to onboard women in their communities. All the women we surveyed had known their agents for over five years; this deep trust in the channel made their KYC verification and onboarding smooth and comfortable. Furthermore, in more than 95% of the cases, the women we surveyed stated that agents set up the wallet for them, explained its features, and helped them conduct a couple of transactions for learning.
In-person onboarding and the promise of safety make women feel confident starting their transactions through wallets. In our survey, 90% of the women said they intended to use the app once weekly, and 68% of the users made more than one transaction.
Cultivating women into long-term digital financial users
Once active, women customers transact confidently. Our data show that, on average, each active customer completed 10 transactions a month (including deposits and withdrawals), and 19% of payments were to merchants. The women surveyed in the first phase of the project were keen on having more app functionalities, such as recharge and bill payment, to manage their expenses: 64% of the surveyed said they felt the existing payment options were limiting, while 32% said they would like Spice Pay to launch a cash-loading option.
This insight was embraced and applied. When Spice Pay launched the features of cash load and an ATM card, their customer base grew despite the absence of any media amplification, relying solely on word-of-mouth promotion. The launch of the Cash Load via Spice Adhikaris feature was especially relevant for women. It created a simple and trusted way to convert cash into digital funds, bridging the gap between women’s preference for cash and the opportunities of digital finance. With cash loading available through agents they already trusted, women could digitize their money without feeling like they were giving up control.
Early usage consistency drives long-term engagement
Early consistent users (or those who completed transactions in the first week of use) had a median of seven transactions, compared to five for early inconsistent users, because they have greater familiarity, trust, and habit, resulting in sustained product engagement. We also saw an increase in average transaction size after the second month, reflecting rising trust and wider use cases as customers became more familiar with product benefits.
Three key takeaways for the digital payments industry
- Women respond to products that protect and preserve their financial autonomy.
- A trusted, local agent network is essential for onboarding and ongoing support that can slowly build her confidence.
- Features that reflect women’s real-life needs drive their usage and adoption.
Moving women from mere access to active, sustained use of digital finance means designing for their lived realities, with trust, safety, and familiarity at the core. Spice Pay’s positioning of the wallet as a “safe locker” (not connected to the bank account) made it more relatable and useful for women customers. Finally, phygital is not optional. Fully digital onboarding risks excluding those who rely on human reassurance, especially women new to digital financial services.
Read more about the UPI For Her initiative: https://www.womensworldbanking.org/insights/upi-for-her-unlocking-the-power-of-200-million-women-in-indias-digital-payments-revolution/
