LightCastle Participates in a Webinar on Financial Inclusion Challenges Faced by Women

On the 21st of September 2022, the Aspire to Innovate (a2i) programme organized a webinar titled ‘Innovations in Financial Services: Are we Addressing the Financial Needs and Inclusion Challenges of Women?’

The webinar commenced with a keynote presentation by Fahmid Kaisar, Business Consultant, LightCastle Partners. The keynote is based on the study titled “Assessing the current ecosystem of financial products for women in Bangladesh”.

The panel discussion session was moderated by Nahid Sharmin, Gender Specialist at the a2i programme, and included a group of esteemed panelists:

• Jayasree Bagchi, Director in the Financial Inclusion Department of Bangladesh Bank
• Sonia Bashir Kabir, Managing Director at SBK Tech Venture
• Rezaul Hossain, Managing Director, and CEO at UPAY
• Bipasha S. Hossain, Team Leader at Swisscontact Bangladesh

The presentation primarily focused on the current status quo of female financial inclusion and existing challenges and gaps hindering access to financial services for women.

Lastly, the keynote focused on critical interventions required from stakeholders to mitigate existing systemic challenges using technologies and affirmative actions.

The event concluded with remarks from the panelists on steps to strengthen the ecosystem by fostering collaboration among ecosystem stakeholders and policymakers.

Media Coverage

1. 40%-50% of loan applications by women get rejected for lack of documents: Study – The Business Standard