Women savers could help India accelerate bank deposit growth

livemint.com:

₹500 per month, this will generate total monthly savings of ₹25,800 crore. Over a year, this could sum up to ₹3.1 trillion in savings, amounting to nearly 13% of the total deposit growth between 2022-2023 and 2023-2024. However, achieving this requires addressing a critical gap that prevents many women from engaging in formal savings.

Many women prefer the convenience of saving cash at home, such as in a rice jar or cupboard, because it is perceived as safe, easily accessible and highly liquid. Others favour alternative savings models like chit funds, which offer privacy and convenience but carry their own risks. On the supply side, the Business Correspondent (BC) model, which many rural women rely on, is not structured to encourage small deposits due to limited profit margins and high transaction costs.

This clearly highlights the lack of formal saving products that are intentionally designed to meet women's unique needs and circumstances, and this remains a significant gap in the financial sector. Without addressing this, women’s participation in formal savings will remain limited. Increasing women’s share of deposits requires innovation in gender-intentional financial services and products.

Banks and financial institutions must leverage tailored behavioural nudges to enhance the uptake of micro-savings among women. Such initiatives should focus on understanding the unique challenges women face in accessing financial services and developing gender-intentional solutions. This includes creating goal-based savings products tied to personal or family aspirations, designing products that balance saving lock-ins with the option of immediate liquidation, setting appropriate default values in savings goals, and using nudges to