Don’t leave women behind

Pakistan has almost 187 million cellular connections. This shows that access to telephony and internet is no longer an issue, however, inclusion is still a challenge as 75 per cent of Pakistani women have some internet access through internet enabled phones but do not own the device. A family may own one mobile device that is primarily used by the male head during work hours from morning to late evening. After that, it is shared between children for both education and entertainment purposes. A woman only has specific time to use her phone to access the internet after finishing her domestic chores. This limited ownership and access also means she is unable to use any digital financial services as her limited time is spent on social media, especially YouTube. According to latest statistics, 71.7 million people use YouTube in Pakistan out of whom only 28 per cent are female. However, this data may be misleading as women generally hesitate creating social media accounts with their own names and use false identities either posing as men or preferring to hide their gender at signup.

Speaking of financial inclusion, only 7 per cent of Pakistani women hold a bank account compared to 21 per cent men. A total of 2.8 per cent of the world’s population lives in Pakistan, contributing 8 per cent of the world’s unbanked adults. The situation is dismal for all genders. A lot of the change and progress seen in financial sector in Pakistan has been in digitisation and branchless banking. But as we go towards a more ‘digital’ state, we also need to be wary of inclusion. Are we leaving women behind? From access to mobile phones and internet data it appears that may be the case. This is where it becomes important that all stakeholders combine resources and sit together to find a solution.

OneLoad is a fintech company which has taken a development sector piece and applied it to a technology firm. It is a digital financial services platform delivering financial services to the poor (FSP) which allows micro retailers to serve walk-in customers from the local communities. The company has forty thousand active locations and has received investment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IFC, Shorooq, and Sarmayacaar.

Since the beginning, the platform was open to all, but it was inherently male-centric targeting kiryana stores and your small corner mobile phone accessory stores falling in the SEC (socio economic class) C and D category. However, with the launch of OneLoad Women Empowerment Project (OWEP), the scene has changed. Since January 2022, OWEP has been creating awareness to promote financial services among women. While OWEP is empowering female retailers with all the digital financial services that a customer may require hence increasing their business and giving them an increased customer-base, it is also bringing empowerment to the local community of women as they feel more confident accessing financial services sold by female agents.

“We have hired a sales team to focus exclusively on signing up female retailers. This has shown significant success. The project started with just 7 retailers and stands at over 700 retailers as of October 2022, in just 10 months. The sales force is operating in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Multan, Gojra, and Kasur. The project is also exploring B2B (business to business) relations for other creative ways to engage women communities. We have a partnership with Kashf Foundation to help their beneficiaries in Lahore to become OneLoad retailers and earn a supplemental income by serving their communities. The goal is to increase female retailer base - making it into a meaningful component of OneLoad,” explains company’s spokesperson.

The sales agents act as mentors for women retailers. They graduate their female base in three phases. The first phase is using the simplest function which is GSM top-ups. Once the new retailer gains confidence in using the feature, her sale agent or mentor then guides her on adding utility bill payments to her list of services. As more features are introduced to the local community, women in the area start visiting the retailer for accessing those services which in turn increase her footfall. Only when she has built a solid credit history with the mentor, she is graduated to the next and important phase of becoming an FS (financial service) retailer, which basically means she can now receive cash-out requests from her customers.

Speaking to Naseem, owner of a mobile accessory store in Peer Colony Lahore, the importance of female agents became more obvious. She feels OneLoad did not only help her generate new business but it also benefited the female customers. Women in SEC C and D do not have access to internet enabled smartphones or digital wallets and are still dependent on these kiryana and paan stores for their GSM top-ups and sending and receiving of money through services like EasyPaisa and Jazz Cash. However, they are not comfortable going into the market and interacting with the male agents. Often, they send a male relative to get their GSM top-ups or rely on voucher cards that cost more in terms of data packages. Women feel more comfortable conducting their transactions through female retailers, like Naseem, compared to male agents. There is an element of trust built on gender as the implication is that a female retailer can understand the problems associated with male vendors who are the cause of leaked phone numbers, unsolicited phone calls, harassment via text messages and blackmail.

Keeping in mind the importance of female agents serving female customers, when OneLoad received a commercial investment from Gates, the company requested an additional grant that was to be used as a catalyst fund to bring more female retailers into the net. This catalyst fund helped propel the project forward with the help of a dedicated sales team made up of both male and female salespeople. B2B opportunities are also being explored along with social media marketing campaigns for digital on boarding and servicing of this ‘online’ category of women agents.

Pakistan has seen a growth of 10 points in financial inclusion over the last decade, yet it falls miserably short of the average 30 points increase recorded by other developing countries. Including women in the fold of small businesses is one solution that can contribute meaningfully to financial inclusion and also enable the fintech sector to tap a huge chunk of underserved population with far reaching benefits to the community.