Innovative Lending Products for Women Led SMEs

Researchers: Michael King, Tricia Koroknay-Palicz, Sreelakshmi Papineni and Siegfried Zottel

Partners: World Bank, Access Bank

Location: Nigeria

Sample: 6,000 clients

Timeline: 2020-2022

Theme: Financial Inclusion

Description:

Women entrepreneurs in Nigeria face higher barriers than men do to access finance, especially in providing traditional forms of collateral for loans, since most assets that lenders accept are typically registered to men. This impact evaluation measures the impact of an innovative credit product designed to surmount longstanding collateral constraints faced by women entrepreneurs by using cash flow to determine credit worthiness. This study examines how the cashflow loan product affects firm performance and productivity and changes in the owner’s household income, consumption, power relations, decision-making and standard of living. Working with one of the largest retail banks in Nigeria, this project will involve 6,000 SMEs.