LightCastle & a2i Co-organizes Gender Inclusive Financial Ecosystem: Bangladesh Symposium

On the 17th of October 2022, the Aspire to Innovate (a2i) program organized an event titled “Gender Inclusive Financial Ecosystem—Bangladesh Symposium” in collaboration with LightCastle Partners. The event launched the research study conducted by LightCastle Partners: “Assessing the Current Ecosystem of Financial Products for Women in Bangladesh”. The event commenced with a keynote presentation on the report findings by Zahedul Amin, Co-founder & Director, LightCastle Partners. The presentation was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Bijon Islam, Co-founder & CEO, LightCastle Partners, and included a group of esteemed panelists:

• Md. Abul Bashar, Executive Director, Bangladesh Bank
• Snigdha Ali, Program Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Md. Arfan Ali, Ex-President & Managing Director, Bank Asia
• Shyamol B Das, DMD and Chief Information Officer, Meghna Bank Limited
• Farida Pervin, Director General (Additional Secretary), Department of Women Affairs
• Dr. Selim Raihan, Professor, Department of Economics, Dhaka University

The presentation primarily focused on the current status quo of female financial inclusion, existing challenges and gaps hindering access to financial services for women, and strategic recommendations for fostering greater financial inclusion for women. The panel discussion included interesting remarks on steps to strengthen the ecosystem. Md. Arfan Ali and Shyamol B Das emphasized the contribution of fintech in this spectrum and the need for financial institutions to partner and delineate products through them. Dr. Selim Raihan prioritized the availability of updated national-level data for different decision-making processes and the importance of collecting information on the internal dynamics of the demographic rather than looking at top-level data.

Keynote Presentation at the Symposium