Women’s Equality Day: is the FinTech industry closing the gender gap?

By Gaia Lamperti

Today marks Women’s Equality Day which celebrates women’s advancements towards equality with men. It recurs every year on August 26^th in memory of the ratification of the 19^th amendment of the US constitution guaranteeing American women their right to vote.

On this occasion, we cannot ignore that the FinTech sector has long been under scrutiny for its lack of representation of females at executive levels. Research from last year showed that women make up only around 20% of the total number of FinTech executive roles globally.

This is definitely not enough to ensure a balanced gender demographic and shows there is still a lot of work to be done before the sector’s equality is truly reflected in the numbers.

Despite the impact of Covid, the Financial Technology sector is experiencing turbo expansion with estimates expecting the industry to grow by 20% and hit $305 billion in market value by 2025. If we do not reach gender equality by then, the gap could become too wide to be ever closed.

Part of the problem links back to the still disproportionally small number of females getting into STEM-related studies, which eventually results in a lack of sector-specific skills and fewer applications recruiters can choose from.

The gender imbalance not only does affect the FinTech industry internally but its user base too. In a study conducted across several countries, the World Bank found out that regardless of the age or region, women use FinTech platforms by around 5 percentage points less than men. The link is clear, with fewer women represented in the industry’s workforce, FinTech products often end up catering to men better or just being more accessible to the male population.

Yet, times are changing

The sector is now well aware of these imbalances and more and more often we hear about success stories of female leaders bringing innovation in the FinTech industry, therefore becoming role models for the generations to come.

“What I am excited about and I am seeing now is an entire corporate culture supporting progress in women’s careers,” said Sahar Salama, CEO and Founder of TPAY MOBILE, in an interview with IBS Intelligence. “I’m very proud of where we are now. Time-wise, it’s very exciting to talk about topics such as inclusion and female representation across the FinTech industry, because it’s not a luxury or an option anymore.”

Research from at month has found out that women hold at least 30% of seats on a majority of S&P 500 boards,  an all-time high in history. The progress has been made through years of investors, regulators and consumers’ pressure, which are all contributing to achieving true gender equality.

In Forbes’ recently released annual ranking of America’s ‘Best Employers for Women’, several big names from the banking and financial services industry made it to the top 200 positions. Among the notable firms appear Paypal (47^th), Citigroup (82^nd) and Visa (118^th).

“The future of the world is becoming more centred around distant economy and tech-led innovation so, all of the legacy businesses are going through a transformation that does allow the catch of contributions by women entering the sector,” Salama concluded. “By leveraging this wave, we can do so much more to address the gender inequality issue which, year after year, is contributing negatively towards the success of the global economy.”