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Innovative Lending Products for Women-Led SMEs in Nigeria

• 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 long standing collateral constraints faced by women entrepreneurs by using cash flow to determine credit worthiness. This study examines how the cash flow 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 involves 6,000 SMEs.