Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in expanding women’s access to financial services through mobile banking, SME financing, agent banking, and digital finance initiatives. According to Bangladesh Bank, female-owned deposit accounts increased from 33.45 million in 2019 to 55.32 million in 2024, while women’s loan accounts more than doubled to over 2.15 million during the same period. These numbers tell an encouraging story of financial inclusion. Yet beneath the success lies a deeper governance challenge: banking systems are still designed for women rather than with women. The real challenge is no longer opening accounts; it is ensuring that women can meaningfully access, understand, trust, negotiate, and control financial systems independently.
A rural woman may own a mobile banking account but still require her husband’s approval to use it. A woman entrepreneur may receive an SME loan yet lack access to timely information, grievance mechanisms, or market networks. Another may avoid formal banking altogether because the language, communication style, and service design feel alien and intimidating. The issue is no longer merely access. It is governance, participation, and trust.
Financial inclusion without participation creates dependency rather than empowerment. While women’s account ownership has expanded significantly, success continues to be measured largely through the number of accounts opened or loans disbursed rather than the quality of women’s agency within the system. Banking products and policies are often developed through top-down processes involving regulators, financial institutions, consultants, and development partners, with limited consultation with the women expected to use them.
Women are frequently treated as beneficiaries rather than stakeholders. There remains little systematic effort to involve them in designing products, repayment structures, communication tools, or service delivery models. Participation cannot exist without accountability, and accountability begins with information. Information within financial systems should not be viewed merely as a customer service function; it is a governance responsibility. Bangladesh Bank has acknowledged the importance of knowledge-building by directing banks to train women entrepreneurs through branch networks. Yet information often flows in only one direction – from institutions to customers – rather than through a structured process of dialogue and feedback. This disproportionately affects women with limited time, mobility, or access to support channels. An urban customer may easily visit a branch and seek clarification. A garment worker, agricultural labourer, or rural entrepreneur may not. As a result, many women remain vulnerable to misinformation, digital fraud, misunderstanding of loan conditions, hidden charges, and confusion regarding complaint mechanisms.
Banks continue to rely on technical language and procedural instructions rather than clear, contextual communication. Time-bound information systems, localised messaging, community feedback mechanisms, and financial literacy support through trained female field agents could significantly improve outcomes.
The communication gap becomes even more apparent when considering who banking campaigns are designed for. Bangladesh Bank data shows that 19.15 million agent banking accounts, more than 86 percent of the total, belong to rural customers. Women hold 11.06 million of these accounts, representing nearly half of all agent banking users. Yet banking advertisements and digital campaigns continue to target urban, educated, digitally fluent women. The imagery often revolves around smartphones, boutique entrepreneurs, and city lifestyles. Rural women rarely see themselves reflected in these narratives. Financial technology interfaces are frequently developed without sufficient consideration of literacy gaps, dialect differences, shared phone ownership, or rural behavioural realities. Communication must therefore move from aspirational urban branding to contextual rural usability.
Another overlooked dimension is the role of household power structures. Financial systems cannot bypass social realities and expect sustainable inclusion. While women now own nearly half of all agent banking accounts, ownership alone does not reveal who controls decisions regarding savings, borrowing, or digital transactions. This is not about reinforcing patriarchal norms; it is about understanding how decisions are made within households. In many rural communities, men continue to influence financial decisions, phone ownership, mobility, and loan utilisation. Ignoring these dynamics can unintentionally limit women’s effective participation.
Research from organisations such as BRAC and WorldFish suggests that women’s economic participation often improves when household decision-makers are engaged alongside women. Community orientation sessions, joint financial literacy initiatives, male ally engagement, and household-centred awareness campaigns can strengthen rather than undermine women’s financial autonomy.
Representation within service delivery systems is equally important. Women customers often feel more comfortable interacting with women agents, facilitators, or field staff, particularly in conservative social settings. Female agents are often better positioned to identify barriers that male staff may overlook. Recent research by BIGD demonstrates that gender-sensitive field engagement can improve participation, trust, and data quality. BRAC Bank’s women-led TARA Agent Banking outlets offer a promising example of how representation can strengthen outreach and customer confidence. Such initiatives recognize an important reality: inclusion is not only about reaching women but also about who represents the institution in front of them. However, representation alone is not enough.
Despite significant gains in access, women’s share of loan accounts increased from only 8.31 percent to 16.49 percent between 2019 and 2024. Publicly available data still tells us little about women’s confidence in making financial decisions independently. Many women continue to rely on husbands, fathers, or brothers for financial advice. Financial authority remains socially associated with men, reflecting deeper educational and cultural barriers. This suggests that financial inclusion efforts must move beyond products and services toward building women-led knowledge ecosystems. Peer learning groups, women’s entrepreneur networks, rural finance ambassadors, and localised financial literacy programmes can help women gain the confidence needed to exercise independent judgment.
The same principle applies to women entrepreneurs. Bangladesh Bank has introduced strong policy incentives, including a target that 15 percent of CMSME lending should reach women entrepreneurs and concessional refinancing support. These initiatives have expanded access to finance, but credit alone cannot overcome structural barriers.
Many rural women entrepreneurs continue to lack mentorship, market access, professional networks, and opportunities for collective learning. District-level entrepreneur forums, cooperative digital learning platforms, and banking-supported SME communities could bridge the gap between urban and rural entrepreneurs while creating stronger pathways for business growth.
Bangladesh Bank’s statistics tell an impressive story of expansion. Female-owned deposit accounts have risen from 33.45 million to 55.32 million in five years. Women’s loan accounts have more than doubled. Women now own nearly half of all agent banking accounts. But these achievements measure entry into the financial system, not influence within it.
The next phase of financial inclusion in Bangladesh must move beyond numerical targets toward governance reform. Women do not merely need more accounts, apps, or loans. They need participatory systems, accountable communication, culturally grounded engagement, trusted representation, and knowledge ecosystems that recognise their lived realities. If banking continues to be designed around institutional convenience and urban assumptions, millions of women will remain formally included but structurally excluded. The question Bangladesh must now ask is simple: Are we building banking services for women, or are we building them with women?
The writer is a Brand and Accountability System Governance Strategist
