{ "title": "International Monetary Fund Releases Gender Disaggregated Financial Access Survey", "publication": "IMF News, March 19, 2018", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey", "overlayPath": "/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/index.md", "summary": "Press Release No. 18/95", "publishDate": "2018-03-19", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview and context", "content": "- Press Release No. 18/95\n- Date: March 19, 2018\n- The IMF conducts an annual Financial Access Survey (FAS), described as a high-quality supply-side financial inclusion database with a global reach to support policy analysis and formulation in the financial inclusion area.\n- The 2016 FAS round included a pilot to capture the financial access gender data gap and support the IMF’s analysis of women’s economic empowerment in boosting growth and reducing income inequality.\n- The 2016 pilot included the participation of 28 countries; it revealed that in almost half of the participating economies, financial service providers had access to their customers’ gender information." }, { "heading": "Expanded 2017 pilot: participation and data coverage", "content": "- An expanded pilot in 2017 invited all IMF country members to report the gender breakdown of their commercial banks’ depositors and borrowers.\n- 27 countries provided information on the gender breakdown from 2004–16, almost doubling the number of reporting countries compared with the 2016 pilot.\n- Two-thirds of the countries reporting gender-disaggregated data provided historical series, enabling trend analysis." }, { "heading": "Key findings and statistics", "content": "- The results reveal the increasing availability of data on gender‑related financial access over the past four years.\n- For gender-disaggregated reporting countries in 2016, the average share of female depositors and borrowers was around 40 percent.\n- The expanded pilot identified noticeable cross‑regional differences in the financial access gender gap; variations could be linked to cross‑country differences in women’s participation in the labor market.\n- Cross-country comparisons show cases of apparent steady closing of the gender gap in Chile, Indonesia and Malaysia from 2012–16." }, { "heading": "Policy-relevant observations and initiatives", "content": "- Availability of consistent, reliable and internationally comparable information is vital to focus attention on policies that could help close the financial access gender gap.\n- Examples of initiatives that may contribute to closing the gap:\n - Malaysia’s Women Entrepreneur Financing Program.\n - Chile’s Simplified Deposit Accounts (requiring only a national identification to open an account).\n- Improvements in data collection and granularity could foster deeper analysis of gender-disaggregated financial access." }, { "heading": "IMF actions and next steps", "content": "- FAS will continue to work with country authorities to address data collection challenges and to improve cross-country comparability of financial access information.\n- The FAS is a key element of the IMF’s “Data for Decisions (D4D) Fund”—a multi-partner trust fund that will be launched in mid-2018 and aims to fund statistics capacity development to broaden the availability of data to policy-makers and support the monitoring of the SDGs.\n- The IMF will make future FAS rounds an integral standard part of the survey to reflect the importance of gender-disaggregated financial access information.\n\nInternational Monetary Fund, Press Release No. 18/95 (March 19, 2018).\n\n---\n\n\n References\n\n- Chile and the IMF\n- Indonesia and the IMF\n- Malaysia and the IMF\n- Press Releases\n- PRESS CENTER\n- FAS website\n- IMF Managing Director’s Announcement of Specific Actions on\nWomen’s Economic Empowerment\n- https://www.imf.org/en/home\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/bundle-manifest.json)", "Published: March 19, 2018", "Press Release No. 18/95", "Date: March 19, 2018", "The IMF conducts an annual Financial Access Survey (FAS), described as a high-quality supply-side financial inclusion database with a global reach to support policy analysis and formulation in the financial inclusion area.", "The 2016 FAS round included a pilot to capture the financial access gender data gap and support the IMF’s analysis of women’s economic empowerment in boosting growth and reducing income inequality.", "The 2016 pilot included the participation of 28 countries; it revealed that in almost half of the participating economies, financial service providers had access to their customers’ gender information.", "An expanded pilot in 2017 invited all IMF country members to report the gender breakdown of their commercial banks’ depositors and borrowers.", "27 countries provided information on the gender breakdown from 2004–16, almost doubling the number of reporting countries compared with the 2016 pilot.", "Two-thirds of the countries reporting gender-disaggregated data provided historical series, enabling trend analysis.", "The results reveal the increasing availability of data on gender‑related financial access over the past four years.", "For gender-disaggregated reporting countries in 2016, the average share of female depositors and borrowers was around 40 percent.", "The expanded pilot identified noticeable cross‑regional differences in the financial access gender gap; variations could be linked to cross‑country differences in women’s participation in the labor market.", "Cross-country comparisons show cases of apparent steady closing of the gender gap in Chile, Indonesia and Malaysia from 2012–16.", "Availability of consistent, reliable and internationally comparable information is vital to focus attention on policies that could help close the financial access gender gap.", "Examples of initiatives that may contribute to closing the gap:", "Improvements in data collection and granularity could foster deeper analysis of gender-disaggregated financial access.", "FAS will continue to work with country authorities to address data collection challenges and to improve cross-country comparability of financial access information.", "The FAS is a key element of the IMF’s “Data for Decisions (D4D) Fund”—a multi-partner trust fund that will be launched in mid-2018 and aims to fund statistics capacity development to broaden the availability of data to policy-makers and support the monitoring of the SDGs.", "The IMF will make future FAS rounds an integral standard part of the survey to reflect the importance of gender-disaggregated financial access information.", "[Chile and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/CHL/index.htm)", "[Indonesia and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/IDN/index.htm)", "[Malaysia and the IMF](http://www.imf.org/external/country/MYS/index.htm)", "[Press Releases](https://www.imf.org/en/news/searchnews)", "[PRESS CENTER](http://presscenter.imf.org/)", "[FAS website](http://data.imf.org/?sk=E5DCAB7E-A5CA-4892-A6EA-598B5463A34C)", "[IMF Managing Director’s Announcement of Specific Actions on", "[https://www.imf.org/en/home](https://www.imf.org/en/home)" ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/index.md", "json": "/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/news/articles/2018/03/19/pr1895-imf-releases-gender-disaggregated-financial-access-survey/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-09-25T21:39:14.141Z" }