BANKS and financial institutions should venture into hire purchase model for smartphones, tablets and laptops to women entrepreneurs to provide financial services, the Chairperson of Generation Equality Forum, Dr Angellah Kairuki, has said.
Ms Kairuki, the Minister of State in President’s Office – Region Administration and Local Government (PoRALG), told reporters in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday that a hire purchase model for mobile communication devices has been identified as an opportunity out of the challenge of lack of access to affordable digital devices that impedes extension of financial services to women.
“The cost (of obtaining mobile devices) is high which is a challenge in extending financial services to women traders but that is an opportunity for banks and financial institutions to supply these devices to women traders on loans because present potential market,” she said after a meeting with the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA), Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.
Dr Kairuki who was appointed by President Samia Suluhu Hassan last year as the national coordinator and advisor to the national action plan for economic justice and right, said lack of access to affordable digital devices was among challenges that needed concerted efforts to tackle through collaboration between the public and private sector as well as development partners including the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA).
She said other challenges included access to finance to women enterprises due to structural and market barriers such as lack of collateral and digital footprint that could be used for alternative referencing.
Access to finance challenge has opened up the opportunity for banks and financial institutions to provide credits to women-owned or led enterprises banking on their strong loan repayment records and the fact that they constitute the majority of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), she said.
According to her, 96 per cent of enterprises are MSMEs, the majority of which are owned by women who have higher loan repayment scores compared to men and are keener to spend their money on productive ventures.
Tanzania GEF members led Dr Kariuki presented key achievements in promoting gender-inclusive financial services at a meeting with Queen Máxima.
The achievements include NMB Bank’s Jasiri Bond, Tanzania Social Assistance Programme (TASAF) and its digital transformative interventions and local government local government small scale loans programme for women, the youth and people with disabilities.
She said NMB’s global award-winning Jasiri Bond which seeks to bridge the financing gap for women-owned and led SMEs was one of outstanding achievement in efforts to promote gender-inclusive financial inclusion.
Net proceeds of the bond which raised more than 32 million US dollars after it was over-subscribed by 197 per cent would be channelled to some 2,000 women-owned or led businesses and those businesses.
On TASAF, the Minister said the majority of households that receive cash payments on a bi-monthly basis were led by women.
She said women accounted for over 56 per cent out of over five million beneficiaries of cash transfers under TASAF.
