To commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day we asked colleagues from across Fair4All Finance to share their reflections on financial inclusion, and asked what they would like to see happen to #accelerateaction

I’m sometimes asked why I do this work. It’s work that’s hard to resist when you know what’s going on in our society.  Back in 2019 when I first started at Fair4All Finance, a colleague shared research that the not for profit lender, Fair for You, had done. They had asked people ‘have you ever been put in a financially difficult situation by someone else’. The stories from their predominantly female customer base were heartbreaking. 

On International Women’s day I’m so conscious of how much there is to do, to make the financial services sector better serve those who are excluded and underserved. As Fair for You’s research first inspired me to realise, many of those people are women. Women who are carrying the circumstances of their families, as single parents; women escaping economic abuse; women trying to start again; take opportunities that come their way; reset after a bump in the road; and build their resilience.

There is a lot to do to change the system so that it’s more inclusive and fairer for everyone. I’m delighted to be supporting the development of the government’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy. We need to build on what works and scale it up, for women, for everyone.

Women bear the brunt of financial exclusion, with millions of us unable to access the safety nets of credit, insurance and savings that we need in order to make it through challenging times. And all of this, in tandem with the gender pay gap, has lifelong effects – for example, women at age 55 have an average of 43% less in their pension pot than men, despite parity in pension participation rates. It’s clear that we need to accelerate action through policy changes that deliver for women facing financial exclusion. 

It’s crucial that the upcoming national Financial Inclusion Strategy widens access to affordable credit, which is an essential part of women’s financial resilience. Access to the small amounts of credit that enables us to meet an unexpected cost, smooth incomes, make purchases – and start over, when we need to – should be supported through mainstream banks. The UK should learn from the successful US ‘small dollar loan’ programme in the USA. Since 2020, mainstream banks have started to offer loans of under $1000. There has been high demand for these loans, and data suggests that this is displacing more punitive payday loans, which can trap people into spirals of debt. 

There is also huge potential to get millions of people saving through an opt-out payroll savings programme, building on the fantastic success of pensions auto enrolment. Thanks to the work of Nest Insight, there is a wealth of evidence for the impact this policy would have.

On International Women’s Day, we take the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of women making an impact and acknowledge the areas where women are still significantly and deeply impacted by injustice.   

Unfortunately, economic abuse remains a pervasive and often hidden form of control that limits women’s financial independence, choices and ultimately opportunities to thrive. 4.1 million women in the last 12 months according to research from Surviving Economic Abuse.  This means restricted access to money, coerced debt and financial exploitation for too many women.

Abusers are weaponizing the financial services system and trapping women in cycles of dependence and vulnerability. And when women do make the courageous act to break free and attempt to rebuild their lives, they face huge costs of almost £50,000 and a deficit of £10,000 once they receive their full entitlement (The Price of Safety, Women’s Aid).   

Fortunately, there are powerful organisations (run by women!)  addressing this issue head on and collaborating across sectors to understand these issues and truly #accelerateaction.   

We have already highlighted Surviving Economic Abuse and Women’s Aid and we have had the privilege of working with them to explore the complexities of economic abuse. Together, we are working to discover and define the needs of survivors and convene across the sector to tangible solutions to support those affected.  

Through shared research, advocacy, and action from civil society, mainstream, regulators and government we can build a future where every woman has the financial freedom and security to thrive. 

We’re proud to back female-led businesses across our programmes within the community finance sector. This year we want to highlight Shiona Critchon, CEO of Moneyline, a CDFI lending to people in financially vulnerable circumstances.

We’ve supported Moneyline to scale their provision of affordable credit since 2020 through our Scale Up Fund and Community Finance Resilience Fund. We were delighted in 2024 when Shiona was announced as the winner of Business Leader of the Year at Women in Credit Awards.

A more recent female-led addition to our portfolio through the Community Finance Resilience Fund is Bradford District Credit Union, led by Katie Hurrell who was shortlisted for the Yorkshire Leadership Awards in 2024. 

The services our investees provide also have direct impact on improving access to financial services for women. 37% of lending provided by our Scale Up portfolio is to lone parents with dependent children, the vast majority of which are single mothers. Across the Scale Up portfolio we see the importance of providing women with access to affordable credit; both Salad Money and Great Western Credit Union report that over 60% of their customers are women.

This year marks 50 years since the Sex Discrimination Act in the UK allowed women to open their own bank accounts, take out mortgages, and apply for loans without male guarantors. It’s astonishing how unimaginable such discrimination feels just a couple of generations later.

However, we know that economic, and social disparity persists in the UK, with women facing lower rates of pay, higher levels of part-time work, and unpaid care burdens. This systemic gap directly informs access to financial services. Women still encounter multiple barriers to accessing banking products such as credit leading to greater financial vulnerability. 

I believe that there is more that Banks can do to support their customers with building in resilience and flexibility over their finances. For example, we have seen most recently the impact that a high street bank can have when a benefit and grant calculator is integrated into a personalized customer journey, identifying millions of unclaimed benefits and maximizing income for many customers and their household. We need to see more banks create the same type of journey for their own customers. 

This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Accelerating Action,” aligns with our goals of securing stronger commitments from banks and mainstream lenders. While there has been some encouraging, collaborative engagement with banks so far, I would love to see more commitment and co-funding at the individual bank level to target innovation around maximising and smoothing income for those who need it most. I look forward to a year of action.

Our research and interviews with financially vulnerable people reveal a troubling pattern: women carry a heavy burden of financial shame and guilt, feeling like they’re constantly falling behind.

The mental toll of managing debt, soaring expenses, and societal expectations of caregiving has only worsened during the cost-of-living crisis – and we saw after the 2007 financial crash women’s mental health suffered disproportionately. But this shame is undeserved.

While conducting our latest analysis on women in financially vulnerable situations, I was struck by the alarming number of women with no savings at all, as well as the fact that women consistently have lower savings than men across all brackets. Savings serve as a crucial safety net during times of need and also provide the freedom to enjoy life and make necessary purchases. Research also shows that having savings boosts overall happiness and reduces financial worries. To better support people, savings products and services should be designed with an intersectional approach – taking into account not just gender but also factors like ethnicity and life stage.

Until fairly recent history, women were locked out of the same financial products as the rest of the UK, and we still earn less than men. While the gender pay gap is closing, real progress means ensuring women have access to the right financial tools too – easing the mental burden and creating a more equal financial future.