Raya Hassan criticizes women economic marginalisation and submits suggestions

The former Minister of Finance, Raya Hassan, criticized the marginalization of women among ‎other segments of society that are excluded from the formal or regulated financial system, ‎pointing out that 55% remain outside the formal financial system at the global level. Hassan ‎made her remarks during the second session of the Annual Arab Banking Conference for 2015, ‎‎‘Challenges Facing Financial Inclusion: The Roadmap 2015-2020’. Hassan stated that the ‎situation of women in the Arab world is not better, adding that “according to statistics, the ‎ownership of accounts in financial establishments reflected a clear gender gap between 64% for ‎men and 29.4% for women only. The ratio of adults who borrowed from commercial banks or ‎related financial institutions in 2014 stood at 10.5% for men against 6.5% for women.” Hassan ‎concluded by saying that aiming to further include women in the financial system requires the ‎following steps:‎
‎-         Conducting a comprehensive market study to get the latest data that reflects a detailed use ‎of the services by gender, age, and regional groups
‎-         Expanding women's access to legal ownership to improve their access to and control of ‎guarantees in terms of assets, with the aim to facilitate their access to financial loans
‎-         Launch of financial education programs that will target women, enrich their financial ‎knowledge and improve their financial approaches
‎-         Promoting of educational curricula in the areas of social responsibility and financial ‎efficiency
‎-         Establishment of a fund that will provide subsidized loans for women entrepreneurs ‎
‎-         Developing new financial tools that target women directly depending on their economic ‎needs
‎-         Building the capacity of financial institutions to better provide assistance to women.( Al ‎Mustaqbal, November 20, 2015)‎