While the progress of gender equality in the world is unquestionable, a larger part of the global unbanked population is female, with the divide being more prominent in developing economies. However, select fintech startups focus on narrowing this gap, addressing gender-specific financial challenges with their tech-driven solutions.
Gender Diversity in Fintech: Myth or Reality?
The gender-related statistics observed in global fintech are not too promising. As of 2023, less than 30% of the workforce employed in the progressive UK’s fintech industry was female, with only 17% of senior fintech executives being women, not to mention the minor (5%) share of female fintech co-founders. By rough estimations, about 12% of fintech founders worldwide are women, though the share of female co-founders among the top 100 leading fintech firms is only 7.7%.
Fewer than half (45%) of women founders feel confident in raising equity capital, in contrast to 62% of men. Additionally, only 31% of these women believe they can access debt funding, compared to 44% of men. It is no wonder since many female-led fintech companies report encountering gender-related challenges when it comes to scaling their businesses.
Moreover, a recent report by The Heard, a ‘women in fintech’ spokesperson index, reveals that 84% of the fintech industry representatives believe that male-dominated media profiles indicate inadequate support for women and non-binary people. Only 31% of respondents feel that event organisers and content producers effectively embrace gender diversity providing enough public speaking opportunities, hence, media representation to all genders.
When the companies led and dominated by men create products catering to women they often miss certain unique perspectives and challenges failing to adequately address pressing issues of their target audience. Or else, they do not target female or non-binary customers at all, suggesting that the offered solutions will be equally suitable to the representatives of all genders. As it’s not always true, many fintechs simply miss out on numerous opportunities. Furthermore, research shows that scaleup fintech firms with female founders achieve 30% higher turnover growth compared to male founders, so male-dominated firms might also lose certain profit gains and performance quality.
Gender-Based Issues That Might Be Addressed by Fintech But Are Often Ignored
If you think that men are the main fintech users, you’re utterly wrong. In developed economies such as the UK, women use digital financial tools more often. A recent Marqueta study found that 44% of female respondents in the UK used a mobile wallet in the past week, compared to 29% of males. Besides, 18% of women had used BNPL in the past month, compared to just 9% of men. Whether they are heads of the household or just the main budget planners in the family, females deal with money and payments more frequently.
However, in the developing economies that balance might be different not due to the women’s unwillingness to use fintech innovations but because of gender discrimination, which limits female abilities to have or manage their own finances. In many countries, women still face legal barriers to access, own and administer financial and property assets. Thus, in about half of the countries in South Asia and MENA regions there are gender differences in property and inheritance processes embedded in legislation. In other countries, females might have legal rights to own and manage various assets but not enough opportunities to get them. For instance, in India only 36% bank accounts are held by women, with an even smaller share of total assets (21% money in all bank accounts) belonging to the female population.
With all the gender disbalance in financial inclusion matters, there are plenty of issues not exclusive of but often pertinent to women that fintech products may address:
- improving financial literacy;
- developing wealth-building and investing habits to eliminate the gender wealth gap;
- supporting female entrepreneurs;
- empowering low-income women to engage with formal banking and boost their financial health;
- alternative avenues of formal banking (e.g. mobile money, blockchain);
- struggles to access credit due to lack of collateral or credit history;
- dependency in financial decision-making;
- gender-based price discrepancies;
- absence of financial tools specific for gig economy;
- shared budget management;
- low female recruitment in fintech roles.
Apps Created by Women With Female Financial Needs in Mind
On the bright side, there is a rising cohort of female-led fintech startups and scaled-up enterprises which target pressing challenges to financial inclusion mostly witnessed by women. Here are some of the notable examples.
Female Invest
This Denmark-based company created an educational app for women to learn their basics about sustainable and standard investing options, personal finance and financial well-being, entrepreneurship, cryptocurrencies, buying property, crowdfunding and loans, financial planning, retirement fund and more. The application offers comprehensive courses with interactive lessons on the mentioned subjects, a trading simulator to practice investing in a safe environment with real market data but fake money, a user community with access to exclusive in-person events, and weekly webinars with live support offering personalised guidance on up-to-date financial topics. While some educational content is available on a zero-fee basis, access to the full suite of membership benefits costs $139 annually. In times of promotions this amount can go down to $59 per year, with a 30-day money back guarantee in case you decide the app is not for you after all.
Mamamoni
Mamamoni is a Nigerian fintech startup with a socially-responsible focus on empowering low-income women and female entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas with vocational training, third-party money transfers and micro-loans. Their key offerings include:
- MamamoniPOS loans, available via the dedicated app or a network of female agents providing secure and supportive environments for financial transactions in local communities,
- FemHealth initiative delivering essential medical services to economically disadvantaged women, ensuring access to affordable medical care, and
- Complimentary educational programs covering finance, digital skills, and business development, tailored specifically for female entrepreneurs to succeed in the digital economy.
Monytri
Monytri is a fintech startup that makes it easy to give stocks and financial assets as gifts, helping people learn about money while promoting thoughtful and sustainable present practice. Co-founded in late 2023 by Chiara Liqui Lung and David Dick, it turns traditional gifts into opportunities for financial growth. The startup has been recognised for targeting the financial literacy gap women face, using gifting occasions to encourage open discussions about finance and investments.
The platform also features educational tools with an intuitive interface, to teach the fundamentals of money management, e.g. budgeting, saving, and investing. This way Monytri encourages informed financial decisions among its users and serves as a catalyst for financial curiosity and literacy.
Zumma Financial
Founded in 2022 by three women with backgrounds in financial services, Mexico-based Zumma Financial offers a financial management platform to help clients manage their finances and automatically invoice expenses. Zumma’s mission is to empower women, especially women entrepreneurs, and their families by helping them build wealth and take control of their financial lives, starting from basic financial planning to smart investing via WhatsApp chat with the help of an AI assistant called Zummi.
Through paying a subscription fee of about $2.9, users can manage and track their personal and business finances, save, and invest in personalised portfolios of fixed income and equities to reach their financial goals in-app. Additionally, business users and individuals may generate expense invoices for a subscription fee between $11.8 and $23.55. Receipts sent through WhatsApp generate fiscal invoices, which are deductible from taxes.
Knomee
Founded in 2023 by Marla Sofer, a veteran in the financial and tech industries, Knomee aims to revolutionise financial wellness by empowering personal financial authenticity and enabling better financial decisions aligned with personal values and goals. Such an approach helps ensure that one’s financial decisions are in line with what matters most to the individual.
The app creates a personalised, gamified user journey based on behavioural science to guide customers through self-discovery and provide personalised financial insights. Although Knomee doesn’t provide traditional financial products, it offers a comprehensive understanding of one’s unique financial identity that assists users in articulating their needs and priorities when further connecting with trusted financial advisors and wealth managers.
The platform is free for users, as revenue is generated through subscriptions from financial professionals who access user profiles with their explicit permission. Knomee prioritises personalised solutions over product sales, turning money into a means of self-expression and tailoring financial planning to align with women’s goals and dreams.
WealthMeUp
The startup, which is less than a year old, offers a fintech platform designed to make financial learning engaging and to transform everyday spending into investment opportunities, with a particular focus on empowering women in the investment space. WealthMeUp provides short courses to help users enhance their financial literacy, making learning about money both fun and accessible. It also offers cashback rewards on purchases, which can be directed into investment portfolios, seamlessly integrating daily spending with regular wealth-building which is often a daunting or even intimidating task. The startup leverages AI and expert advisors, to provide users with tailored financial plans suitable to help them achieve their financial goals.
Parlay
Parlay is an AI-driven Loan Intelligence System (LIS) designed to work alongside Loan Origination Systems, enabling community banks and credit unions to approve more small business loans efficiently through an alternative creditworthiness scoring system. Founded by Alex Mcleod in 2022, the innovative startup helps underserved small business owners, particularly women, who struggle to attain business financing the most, access affordable loans. Parlay partners with community lenders, which, in turn, offer their SMB applicants a white-label version of the company’s software.
The platform assesses eligibility during the application process, offering applicants useful advice, insights, industry benchmarks, and financial ratios to boost their confidence and preparedness, thereby improving their likelihood of loan approval. The platform also tracks applicant preparedness and enhances underwriting efficiency through data-driven insights. According to the company, more than 40% of Parlay’s users are women.
Bottom Line
It would take a lot more words to enumerate all the empowering fintech startups which place women’s interests, challenges and needs at the heart of their core product to ultimately help all the customer categories instead of focusing on the male perspective. Many promising projects are still in development and many are looking for funding to boost their growth or launch viable products, so we’ll surely get back to the topic some time in the future with fresh names and initiatives. And yet, even this short list is encouraging as we see the share of female co-founders, executives and employees gradually growing, bringing in new solutions, promoting wealth-building accessibility, financial inclusion and literacy, and making a positive change in this largely male-dominated space.
