为什么需要更多的小额贷款来赋予女性权力并促进可持续的包容性经济增长。
近10亿女性被完全排除在正式金融体系之外。他们甚至没有以自己名义开立的银行账户，缺乏我们大多数人认为理所当然的基本服务，也缺乏储蓄、支付账单和获得信贷的安全方式。被排除在正式金融体系之外意味着他们是经济局外人，无法从经济增长中获益或为经济增长做出贡献。小额信贷被誉为发展中国家妇女的经济生命线，但正如玛丽·艾伦·伊斯肯德里安（Mary Ellen Iskenderian）在本书中所展示的那样，要赋予妇女权力，促进可持续、包容的经济增长，需要的不仅仅是小额贷款。
伊斯肯德里安是一家致力于让女性进入金融体系的非营利组织的负责人，他认为银行业不应该把这10亿“无银行”女性视为慈善事业，而是一个商业机会：一个由小企业主、户主以及金融产品和服务购买者组成的利润丰厚的新市场。伊斯肯德里安（Iskenderian）展示了金融包容如何能改变发展中国家妇女的生活，除其他外，他描述了妇女所依赖的非正式放债人和储蓄俱乐部，随着手机成为银行业的一种手段，对金融和数字素养（以及访问）的需求，以及妇女产权的重要性。她继续为金融包容做商业案例，探索金融机构正在适应的方式，以帮助女性积累财富、获取资本和管理风险。银行可以做正确的事情，在这样做的同时赚钱，我们所有人都可以受益。
There’s Nothing Micro about a Billion Women: Making Finance Work for Women (The MIT Press)
Why it takes more than microloans to empower women and promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
Nearly one billion women have been completely excluded from the formal financial system. Without even a bank account in their own names, they lack the basic services that most of us take for granted—secure ways to save money, pay bills, and get credit. Exclusion from the formal financial system means they are economic outsiders, unable to benefit from, or contribute to, economic growth. Microfinance has been hailed as an economic lifeline for women in developing countries—but, as Mary Ellen Iskenderian shows in this book, it takes more than microloans to empower women and promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth.
Iskenderian, who leads a nonprofit that works to give women access to the financial system, argues that the banking industry should view these one billion “unbanked” women not as charity cases but as a business opportunity: a lucrative new market of small business owners, heads of households, and purchasers of financial products and services. Iskenderian shows how financial inclusion can be transformative for the lives of women in developing countries, describing, among other things, the informal moneylenders and savings clubs that women have relied on, the need for both financial and digital literacy (and access) as mobile phones become a means of banking, and the importance of women’s property rights. She goes on to make the business case for financial inclusion, exploring the ways that financial institutions are adapting to help women build wealth, access capital, and manage risks. Banks can do the right thing—and make money while doing so—and all of us can benefit.
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