Let’s talk about the pink elephant in the financial inclusion room: why don’t financial service providers design products intentionally for women?
The success of all products and services hinges on a few critical elements – it must add value to the user’s life, address a problem they face, and be deeply rooted in their lived realities. While some in the financial inclusion industry have undertaken exercises in customer-centricity, many have not – and they continue to leave business opportunities on the table when it comes to women, who have proven to be excellent clients.
Pinkwashing – where companies superficially design for women by simply turning products pink – will no longer cut it. Financial inclusion means women have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that truly respond to her realities.
While access to finance has grown in the past decade, it has largely benefited men and excluded women. Women face systemic barriers to participation in the formal financial sector, fundamentally operating with less of everything: less mobility, less access to education, training, and financial services, fewer rights, fewer assets, less market access, less negotiation power, less control – the list goes on and on. The solution isn’t just “pink-wrapped” bank accounts but creating an environment where women entrepreneurs also have access to credit, insurance, and financial products. Designing for people facing the greatest barriers – often women — makes financial products more convenient, adaptable, and accessible for all. By addressing the challenges of those struggling most to start businesses or access credit, we create better solutions that drive economic growth and profitability.[1]
So how do we come together to design for these needs?
Design for differences – don’t just “Pink-It and Shrink-It”
Everywhere you look, the world is not equally designed for men and women.
- Women experiencing medical emergencies in public are 23% more likely to die than men because CPR training focuses on “male” mannequins, leaving bystanders hesitant to perform chest compressions on women.
- When astronaut Anne McClain needed a medium spacesuit for a spacewalk, she was grounded because there was no space suit available in her smaller size.
- Women face twice as many adverse medication side effects since drug dosages have long been based on male-centric clinical trials.
This snapshot reveals a clear problem: the world we live in is often designed-by-men-for-men. No matter the sector, the distinct needs of women are frequently overlooked or inadequately addressed. To create a market system that truly serves women, we must fundamentally rethink our approach to designing financial services.
Enter women-centered design (WCD). Building on the foundations of human-centered design, this approach involves actively listening to women, testing products and services with them, and iterating based on their feedback. WCD doesn’t exclude men, but rather, results in products that are more flexible, have fewer requirements, and are more convenient for all – expanding choice not just for women, but for many segments of the market – while also driving profitability. To better understand it, let’s take a look at an example in a sport over 5 billion of us love – soccer.
The soccer industry long relied on a “pink-it and shrink-it” approach to women’s cleats -resizing and recoloring men’s cleats for women. Not made to support their feet, female athletes are 2–8 times more likely to tear an ACL due to poorly designed cleats. Women-owned IDA Sports, seeing an opportunity to create more effective and safe products for women and also tap into a new market opportunity, addressed this by creating cleats based on women’s physiology, posted consecutive tripled year-over-year revenue growth in 2023 and 2024.
This shift demonstrates the power of intentional, women-centered design—an approach that can be both inclusive and moneymaking. Our experiences affirm that, while the process requires time and dedication, designing specifically with and for women not only leads to successful products for them, and even attracts male customers, highlighting the strong market appeal for the work.
Women-Centered Design for entrepreneurs: An intentional approach
What does WCD look like for women entrepreneurs? At CARE, through our Strive Women program, we work with women to ensure they feel equipped to grow their businesses, so they gain economic power in their households, communities, and economies. Grounded in WCD principles, addressing the syndrome of pinkwashing is at the very core of what we do.
Through the Ignite program, phase one of Strive Women, CARE successfully used WCD in partnership with financial service providers to adapt a portfolio of financial products.
- In Peru: Collaborating with microfinance institution Financiera Confianza identifying barriers such as the requirement for a husband’s signature on loans and the demand for short-term loans. In response, we developed flexible loan products that also included health insurance for breast cancer screenings. These were delivered by trusted loan officers and supported by digital technology.
- In Vietnam: Partnering with commercial bank VPBank creating affordable digital services tailored for women who were time-constrained and digitally capable that needed to access services quickly. With Thanh Hoa MFI, launching a highly successful loan product that increased loan amounts without raising requirements.
- In Pakistan: With partner UBank, eliminating male guarantor requirements and leveraging gold as collateral- based on the insight that South Asian women have one particular asset – gold for marriage.
In each of these countries, we achieved significant success, with low non-performing loan rates and high demand for the women-centered products. In Pakistan, we even had 100% repayment on one loan product. Global data confirms this – showing that women are better savers, better repayors, more loyal clients, and are just good for business.
A new chapter in women’s economic growth
While our Women’s Entrepreneurship practice at CARE focuses on tailoring financial products to women’s needs, the lessons learned have far-reaching implications. Financial service providers, donors, and development organizations must move beyond brightly-colored marketing gimmicks and prioritize listening to target audiences and designing to address the specific barriers they face. The success of CARE’s programming illustrates that designing with women not only leads to meaningful inclusion but also unlocks untapped markets and build stronger businesses. Other organizations can leverage these insights to create innovative, impactful solutions in their respective sectors—whether it’s healthcare, education, or climate resilience.
We invite you to contribute to this journey, accelerating progress and enabling women to thrive. Together, a significant impact on women’s economic growth worldwide is within reach.
About CARE: Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package®, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside women and girls. Equipped with the proper resources, women and girls have the power to lift whole families and entire communities out of poverty. In 2024, CARE worked in 121 countries, reaching 53 million people through 1,450 projects. To learn more, visit www.care.org.
About Strive Women: Mastercard Strive is a portfolio of philanthropic programs supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and funded by the Mastercard Impact Fund. With programs around the world, Mastercard Strive aims to support 18 million small businesses to go digital, get capital, and access networks and know-how. Strive Women started in 2023 as an evolution of the Ignite program and uses women-centered design to deliver tailored financial products and support services, such as digital skills building and strengthening women’s networks. The program addresses the unique barriers faced by women-led businesses in Pakistan, Peru, and Vietnam. Strive Women aims to reach over 6 million entrepreneurs through its campaigns.
In the regions where CARE operates, structural disparities for women and girls are profound. Around 2.4 billion women of working age are not afforded equal economic opportunity and more than 1 billion women do not have access to finance. In lower and middle income countries, there are 265 million fewer women than men using mobile internet. Globally, 496 million women make up nearly two-thirds of the worlds illiterate adults, highlighting a significant gap in literacy. Addressing these challenges is crucial, as enhancing women’s economic participation can drive business growth, expand the financial sector, and foster overall market development.
About the Author
Rathi Mani-Kandt is the Director of Women’s Entrepreneurship and Financial Inclusion at CARE. With over 15 years of experience, she specializes in designing financial and non-financial services that work for low-income populations, particularly low-income women. Rathi’s work focuses on supporting women-owned micro and small businesses through innovative, tailored products and support services.
