The Quick Read
- The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots in Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka show how financial institutions can move from broad commitments to practical action for women entrepreneurs.
- The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code brings governments, financial institutions, regulators and ecosystem partners together to increase funding for women-led MSMEs through data, targets, tailored products and institutional accountability.
- The five key lessons are clear: use sex-disaggregated data, design products with women in mind, offer support beyond credit, embed women’s finance into governance systems, and build internal champions.
- The pilots show early results. Amartha’s female customer base grew by more than 50% after signing the Code, Fiji Development Bank increased women’s portfolio accounts by about 30%, and Hatton National Bank raised women’s share in its microfinance portfolio from 25% to 33% in one year.
- The big lesson for India and other markets is simple: lending to women is not a CSR idea. It is a serious strategy for financial inclusion and business growth.
Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots show what changes when banks stop guessing
Women entrepreneurs are often described as “underserved”. The word is polite. The reality is sharper.
Many women-led businesses are not short of ambition. They are short of the right kind of finance. They face collateral barriers, limited credit histories, weaker networks, product designs that do not align with their cash flows, and lending systems not built with them in mind.
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots in Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka offer a useful lesson here. They show that financial inclusion for women entrepreneurs cannot be solved by launching one pink-branded loan product and calling it progress.
The Code works better when institutions change how they collect data, design products, set targets, train staff and measure success.
Development Asia’s case study, based on work supported by the Asian Development Bank’s Women’s Finance Exchange, estimates the broader MSME financing gap at $17 billion in Sri Lanka, $235 billion in Indonesia, and $1.08 billion in Fiji, which is equal to 23% of Fiji’s GDP. For women-led enterprises, the constraints are often deeper due to collateral requirements, product design gaps, and lending bias.
That is the starting point. The real question is what financial institutions do next.
What are the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots?
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code is a global initiative that encourages financial institutions, regulators, development banks and other ecosystem actors to work together to increase financing for women-led micro, small and medium enterprises.
The World Bank describes it as a commitment by financial service providers, regulators, development banks and others to increase funding to women-led MSMEs. The idea is to help them grow and contribute to the economy and their communities.
In Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the Asian Development Bank’s Women’s Finance Exchange supported the adoption and implementation of the Code. The pilots worked with Fiji Development Bank, Amartha in Indonesia and Hatton National Bank in Sri Lanka. The focus was not only on lending. It was also on better data, institutional systems, customer-informed products and gender-responsive finance practices.
That is important because many women entrepreneurs do not fail at the loan counter. They fail much earlier in the system.
Sometimes the lander does not fully understand women’s business. Some other times, lenders misread their cash flow. Their lack of collateral is treated as a lack of seriousness. Their need for training, market access, insurance or digital tools is separated from the credit conversation.
The pilots show that women’s finances have to be designed as a system.
Lesson 1: If banks do not count women properly, they cannot serve them properly
The first lesson is basic but powerful: collect sex-disaggregated data.
A bank cannot build a serious women’s finance strategy if it does not know how many women customers it serves, what sectors they work in, how much they borrow, how they repay, where they are located, and what support they need.
Development Asia notes that sex-disaggregated portfolio data helps financial institutions understand how women entrepreneurs use finance, repay loans and access services. In Sri Lanka, Hatton National Bank introduced gender tagging, strengthened sex-disaggregated data collection and upgraded internal systems. Fiji Development Bank also used disaggregated data by sex, location and sector to understand women clients and track progress.
It matters for India too.
A previous Change in Content article on complex business loans for women entrepreneurs in India examined how women often struggle with working capital, overdrafts, secured lending, and larger-ticket credit. Better data can help lenders see whether women are being excluded at the application, approval, ticket-size or renewal stage.
Without data, bias hides. With data, excuses become harder.
Lesson 2: Design products with women, not around stereotypes
Women entrepreneurs are not one market. A woman running a food business, a garment unit, a retail shop, a digital service, a beauty enterprise, or a farm-linked enterprise will not have the same cash flow pattern.
Yet many financial products are designed as if women’s businesses are all small, low-risk, low-growth and informal by nature.
The pilots offer a better model.
In Indonesia, Amartha used customer insights to understand women entrepreneurs’ cash-flow needs and demand for services such as micro-insurance and micro-investment. It then adapted its offerings, introduced more flexible loan products and digitised credit underwriting tools to reduce application time and improve access.
That is the kind of shift women entrepreneurs need. Not sympathy, slogans or one-size-fits-all lending. They need products that match how their businesses actually earn, spend, stock, sell and grow.
Lesson 3: Credit alone is not enough
A loan helps. But a loan by itself may not unlock growth.
Women entrepreneurs may also need digital tools, legal and tax advisory services, capacity building, market access, insurance, bookkeeping support, and confidence in dealing with formal institutions.
In Sri Lanka, Hatton National Bank developed and piloted a women-focused product suite with support from ADB and the National Enterprise Development Authority. The suite included tailored loans, capacity building, digital tools, legal and tax advisory services, market access and insurance.
That is where financial institutions often underperform. They treat credit as the product. For many women entrepreneurs, credit is only one part of the journey.
A woman may receive a loan and still struggle to price her product, file documents, enter a new market, manage cash flow, deal with tax questions or insure against shocks. If the bank wants her to grow, the support system has to be wider.
That does not mean every bank must become a training institute. It means banks should build partnerships. With business associations, digital platforms, government bodies, women’s entrepreneurship networks, and market-linkage organisations.
Finance should open the door. The ecosystem should help the business walk through it.
Lesson 4: Women’s finance must sit inside the institution, not outside it
Women’s finance cannot survive as one passionate person’s project. It needs governance.
The pilots show that women’s finance becomes stronger when it is built into corporate planning, leadership oversight, reporting and performance systems. Hatton National Bank used a CEO-led strategy and a cross-divisional Women Banking Steering Committee. Fiji Development Bank integrated women’s finance targets into corporate planning, management reporting and performance frameworks. This is a useful warning.
Many institutions launch women-focused programmes with good publicity. Then the programme sits on the side. The core lending team continues as before. Risk teams continue as before. Product teams continue as before. Branch staff continue as before.
That is not a transformation. Women’s finance becomes serious when the CEO sees it, the board tracks it, branches understand it, risk teams measure it fairly, and performance systems reward it.
Lesson 5: Internal champions turn strategy into daily practice
Policies do not implement themselves.
The pilots show the importance of internal champions who keep gender-responsive finance visible in daily operations. At Fiji Development Bank, progress was supported by leadership and small teams across departments that helped build awareness, influence peers and keep the work moving. This may sound small. It is not.
A woman entrepreneur’s experience is often shaped at the branch level, in call centres, in conversations with field officers, or at credit assessment desks. If, at that point, the person does not understand the woman’s financial strategy, the policy remains distant.
- Internal champions help close that gap.
- They can question old assumptions.
- They can push for better data.
- They can notice where women drop off.
- They can explain new products to teams.
- They can make gender finance practical.
This is how strategy becomes behaviour.
What did the pilots achieve?
The early results are encouraging.
After signing the Code in 2024, Amartha’s female customer base grew by more than 50%. Its digital underwriting tool and flexible loan tenor helped it reach more women and disburse more working capital loans.
Fiji Development Bank increased its women’s portfolio accounts by about 30% after joining the Code and received the 2025 Excellence in Gender Reporting Award from the South Pacific Stock Exchange.
In Sri Lanka, Hatton National Bank’s sex-disaggregated data collection helped it design more targeted interventions. At the same time, the share of women in its microfinance portfolio rose from 25% to 33% in one year.
These numbers matter because they show that better design can change outcomes.
Women entrepreneurs do not need to be “made bankable” by rhetoric. Institutions need to become better at recognising the bankability that already exists.
What India can take from these pilots
India’s women entrepreneurs face many of the same barriers: collateral requirements, formalisation, limited credit history, small ticket sizes, limited advisory support, and weaker access to growth finance.
The lesson from the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots is that the answer cannot be only more schemes. It has to be better systems.
India’s banks, NBFCs, fintechs, government institutions and MSME support platforms should take five ideas seriously:
- Collect gender-disaggregated lending data.
- Design loan products with women customers.
- Offer support beyond credit.
- Build women’s finance into governance.
- Train internal champions across branches and teams.
It closely aligns with Change in Content’s earlier piece on the financial health of women-owned SMEs, where the core challenge was not ambition but access to suitable, timely, and well-designed finance.
Women entrepreneurs are not asking for softer standards. They are asking for systems that better understand their businesses.
The Change in Content View on Women Entrepreneurs’ Finance Code Pilots
The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots are useful because they move the conversation from intention to execution.
They show that women’s access to finance improves when institutions stop treating women entrepreneurs as a niche segment and start treating them as a real market.
The lesson is simple. Count women properly. Listen to them carefully. Design around their business realities. Support them beyond the loan. Make leadership accountable.
Women entrepreneurs do not need another symbolic door opened halfway. They need financial systems that help them enter, grow, hire and build wealth.
That is where inclusion becomes economic power.
FAQs
Q: What are the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots?
A: The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots are country-level efforts to implement the WE Finance Code through financial institutions and ecosystem partners. In Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the pilots focused on better data, gender-responsive finance, tailored products and institutional accountability for women entrepreneurs.
Q: What is the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code?
A: The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code is a global initiative that encourages financial institutions, regulators, development banks and ecosystem actors to increase financing for women-led micro, small and medium enterprises through data, targets, product design and accountability.
Q: What are the main lessons from the Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka pilots?
A: The five lessons are: use sex-disaggregated data, design products with women customers, offer support beyond credit, embed women’s finance into governance and performance systems, and build internal champions who can turn strategy into daily practice.
Q: Why does sex-disaggregated data matter in women’s finance?
A: Sex-disaggregated data helps financial institutions see how women entrepreneurs borrow, repay, use services, and where they face barriers. Without this data, lenders may not know whether women are being excluded or underserved.
Q: Why is credit alone not enough for women entrepreneurs?
A: Women entrepreneurs may need more than loans. They may also need business training, digital tools, legal and tax advisory services, market access, insurance, bookkeeping support, and mentoring to use finance effectively and grow sustainably.
Editorial Note and Sources
This article is based on publicly available information from Development Asia, the Asian Development Bank’s Women’s Finance Exchange and the World Bank on the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code and its pilots in Fiji, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. It interprets the lessons through the lens of women, finance and enterprise growth. The article is intended for editorial and informational purposes only. It should not be read as financial, investment, legal, banking or business advisory guidance.
Sources used:
- Development Asia: 5 Lessons from Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code Pilots in Fiji, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka
- World Bank: WE Finance Code Launches with Endorsements from Leaders of Development Banks
- Asian Development Bank Women’s Finance Exchange
- Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative: WE Finance Code
