Ahead of IWD, leading women in FinTech discuss gender equality in the industry

By Puja Sharma

According to the Women & Money Power 2022 report, 55% of females in India are not making independent financial decisions. The country is famous for its financial advisors, and yet there exists a whole sector of audiences that have never been catered to.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day (IWD), leading women in the FinTech ecosystem in India have shared with IBS Intelligence their views about the future of the industry in putting women at the center of both the leadership and consumers’ perspective.

“Through the two decades that I spent in the industry, I noticed the deep chasm that existed between the sheer numbers of financial products catering to men and the sincere lack of those for women,” commented Priti Rathi Gupta, Founder of financial platform for women LXME.

“Around 33% of women in India do not invest at all and 22% are unaware of investments in their name. When I started LXME in 2018, I decided to fight this negligence battle at its very core, I have been driving this consciously even at the workplace since the very beginning. At LXME, the team is primarily women-led and women-driven; partly by chance and partly by design. Gender inclusion starts at the workplace as we try to solve for financial gender inclusion.

“We have been successful to a great extent but our journey is quite long. It is heartening to see more women in fintech take charge and break these barriers. It is an industry that has been primarily male-dominated, but the times are changing today with the young and old taking the power of digitisation and propelling it to the power of the future.”

Priyanka Kanwar, Co-founder of Falcon, an embedded finance start-up, said: “While FinTech & BFSI  have been typically dominated by men, I’m thrilled that this trend is fast changing. From the time that I started my journey in Fintech to today, I’ve already seen a significant jump in the number of women I work with within the space, be it engineers, bankers, investors, or fellow founders.

“I’m very excited about women’s participation & leadership in Fintech going up in the next 5 years and am looking forward to contributing to this myself by hiring & training more women, providing mentorship, and investing in female-led FinTech companies.

“FinTech is a brave new world of fast-paced technology giving birth to life-changing use-cases every day which is why it is extremely important for more women to be a part of this industry to build a financially and socially equitable future.

“With an astute sense of financial management and proven to be better budgeteers, women are gradually yet steadily assuming significant roles in FinTech across levels including leadership which is having a profound impact on the way we address our financial need gaps today. While this may be just the beginning of a new era, they are already taking charge of the driver’s seat, bridging the gender divide and remodeling the future of the FinTech industry for the better.”

Priyanka Rathore, Co-founder & COO at Strata, a PropTech platform offering commercial real estate investment, shared: “Gender inequality and lack of financial independence among women have inspired some of the most successful start-ups today, especially in FinTech. This underlines the enormous opportunity that the industry can latch on to by prioritizing women-centric services and targeting women consumers more meaningfully.”

A Deloitte study indicates that FinTech firms with women as founders or cofounders comprise just 12.2% of the total startups. However, based on our understanding, if we expand our view and consider the women employees across the organization and the impact on the end-user, FinTech has a much stronger impact on the lives of women.

 “Very often when we think of women representation in a sector, we end up looking at popular matrix such as top management team; funding garnered by women-led firms,” Shweta Aprameya, CEO and Founder of ARTH, a women-focused micro-financing platform, said.

“The numbers while becoming better are still far from being equal.  It is perhaps one sector that has and will continue to see more equitable participation of women across the organization and not just at the top layer of the organization.

“It is equally interesting to note that the products offered by the new age financial firms, like ours, have a focus on designing products with “she” micro-entrepreneurs in mind, who continue to be underserved by the larger financial institutions. A suitable financial product, offered at the right time encourages more impactful participation of women in economic activities.

“The pandemic has helped in increasing the adoption of digital financial services and reducing the technology barriers that existed before. One of the biggest beneficiaries of this is women, they are no longer dependent or restricted by the presence of physical branches for their activities. We expect to see a lot more innovations by startups and initiatives by the Government to support this trend. Leading the change will be women-led FinTech firms.”

Natasha Jethanandani, CTO and Co-founder of Kaleidofin, the FinTech platform for excluded individuals and households, concluded: “As compared to Finance and Technology – the two sectors that the word FinTech is derived from – the representation of women in Fintech has been promisingly higher. Younger FinTech firms, with no legacy baggage, have crafted out policies and cultures that are more conducive towards equal opportunities, attracting a larger share of talented women employees.

“The opportunities, according to us, are likely to only grow. Especially in the financial inclusion sector, there is a need to build products that resonate with multiple constraints in which an underbanked customer operates.

“The momentum for participation and involvement in the sector however needs to be supported by simple yet effective steps like making diversity an important and uncompromisable agenda for hiring across the board. Creating a culture of work-life balance and also encouraging women who are re-entering the workplace after a break are some simple rules that will support women’s participation.”