Women entrepreneurs don't get 'equal' access to finance

FE Report

Women entrepreneurs do not get "equal" access to finance yet, though the number of female loan defaulters is lower compared to men, experts said on Saturday.

The views came at a discussion titled "Balance for better-question time," which was organised to observe the International Women's Day.

The Association of Grassroots Women Entrepreneurs Bangladesh (AGWEB), with support from IFIC Bank, organised the discussion meeting in the city's CIRDAP auditorium.

Dignitaries present at the meeting were former governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB) Dr Atiur Rahman, National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, and Member of Parliament (MP) Aroma Dutta.

Managing director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Of Dhaka Bank Syed Mahbubur Rahman and MD of IFIC Bank Shah A Sarwar took part in the panel discussion. Association's president Mousumi Islam moderated the session.

In his speech, Atiur Rahman said there are no issues with the financial systems to support the country's women entrepreneurs, but many people have reservations about women's success mainly due to social conservatism.

Between 2010 and 2017, the former governor said, around 0.4 million women entrepreneurs in the country received credit equivalent to US$ 3.3 billion.

Atiur proposed raising the ceiling for credit guarantee scheme to Tk 20 billion from the present Tk 2.0 billion.

He also talked about financial instruments like venture capital and angel capital for increasing women entrepreneurs' access to fund.

The NBR chief said the gender gap in Bangladesh has been minimised significantly to over 70 per cent, which is close to many developed countries.

Women entrepreneurs default less compared to males, he said, adding, "I also checked with my officials that enterprises owned by women also pay the taxes accordingly."

Dhaka Bank MD Syed Mahbubur Rahman said 90 per cent of women entrepreneurs invest their earning for their family, while only 40-50 per cent of their male counterparts do so.

There are around 14 per cent non performing loans (NPL) in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) loan, while women make only 5-6 per cent of the total.

Underscoring the need for women's participation in economic activities, the banker said around 85

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