The Finance Project provides women with a 2 day intensive financial literacy training to influence long-term financial behavior. We thank the World Bank for providing us with Financial Literacy Education (FE) materials, that are used for FE trainings.

Our mission is to inculcate the habits of disciplined savings formally (in banks and other financial institutions such as post office etc). We strongly encourage women to set their financial goals so that they can save towards a tangible goal. To that effect, we are planning on introducing the following financial project:

• Provide women with an intensive, personalized financial literacy; the aim is to educate women about importance of savings, about financial institutions providing products and services for short-term and long-term savings.
• Work with women one-on-one to set tangible savings goals and works towards a savings plan for women.
• Provide women with specific information about complex savings products such as recurring deposits, fixed deposits, which can provide women an opportunity to save earn an interest on their savings.
• Work with women to determine the barriers to accessing financial products and services, and barriers to modifying financial behavior.
• Document women’s’ experience through the financial literacy sessions and assess the impact of the program.

Our endeavor stems from research that shows:

1.  gender gap in financial literacy (knowledge and capability) exists and favors men in both OECD countries and developing countries.
2. Women have limited exposure women have to financial products and learning; this gap can potentially be remedied through better financial awareness campaigns targeted towards women.For example, the IFMR-Research (Chennai, India) found that women exposed to two-day Financial Literacy Education (FE) training in Uttar Pradesh were more likely to save, compared to the control group not exposed to FE, and compared to men exposed to FE. Similarly in the Philippines, researchers found that hyperbolic women were more likely to take-up a commitment savings product compared to control clients, and to men.
3. When women played a greater role in financial decision-making, savings and investments increased and debt repayment was higher because women were more responsive to savings solutions that reduce temptation spending and other saving barriers. However, spousal financial control is a key factor in predicting household’s savings behavior.

We intend to follow stories of the inspiring students in our program and share them with you. Please see pictures from “The Finance Project” in our Gallery.