The business case: women as a market

Module 02 / 5 · 45 min

See why serving women well is profitable banking: how women save, repay and stay loyal, and what the WEDP experience showed.

In this module you will learn to

Describe women as a market segment with distinct needs and sub-groups
Explain the savings, repayment and loyalty patterns that make women customers valuable
Summarize what the Women Entrepreneurship Development Project (WEDP) experience showed lenders
Estimate the deposit and revenue value of a women's customer group with a simple calculation

Built on

Erudite Africa training module: Ethiopian Context, topic 4.f Gender-Sensitive Financial Services, Level 1 (October 2026)
World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab with the NBE: Making Ethiopia's Financial Sector Work for Women (March 2024)
National Financial Inclusion Strategy II (2021 to 2025), the NFIS-III refresh and the Women's Financial Inclusion Scorecard (NBE with the World Bank)
NBE Proclamation No. 1359/2025 and NBE directives as listed in the lessons: SBB/91/2024, SBB/72/2019, NBE/INT/13/2026, Instruction FCPED/142/26; consumer protection rules reported as FCP/01/2020
A commercial bank's Revised Credit Procedure Manual (August 2025), unnamed, including its references to Proclamation No. 1147/2019 and Directive MCR/01/2020

Examples and organizations are fictional. Apply your own organization's approved policies.