For financial service companies, women’s day not over yet

There are still pockets in metros and across non-metros where women are not able to access the banking channels. However, things are changing for the better.

Efforts are being made to encourage women participation. Banks and other financial services intermediaries are offering special services for women — from products meant specifically for them to having centres with women-only staff and offering special discounts on products.

Bharti AXA General Insurance announced on Monday it will offer a 10% discount to all women on its products for the month of March.
“The purpose… is to express our support to women across the country and educate them and their families on the growing significance and benefit of health insurance,” said Amarnath Ananthanarayan, CEO, Bharti AXA General Insurance.

Efforts are also on at banks to bring in women in their financial net. Canara Bank and Indian Bank have set up special women-only branches in south India.

Canara Bank has also established about half a dozen mahila banking cells inside branches. Canara Bank said it has lent Rs 12,147 crore as of March 2009 to over 7 lakh women, or about 11.5% of net credit provided by the bank.

Indian Bank has started a special women-only branch in Dharmapuri, Andhra Pradesh, which caters to self-help groups.
The Reserve Bank of India had, vide a circular issued in December 2000, asked public sector banks to have one officer in each branch designated to exclusively deal with cases of flow of credit to women.

“Banks should have a desk visibly placed to provide women with relevant information and guide them in making loan applications. As far as possible, the desk should be handled by a well-trained lady staff member, particularly in rural areas,” the RBI circular said.

However, not all banks have been active on this front. Some, such as Axis Bank and ICICI Bank, have introduced accounts specifically for women.

Others are offering accounts, debit cards and credit cards that suit the needs of women.

For instance, Bank of Baroda, Citibank and HDFC Bank offer credit cards especially for women.

The cards come with facilities such as a free insurance cover for jewellery, or discounts on purchases made at grocery stores, home improvement stores and hair salons or over purchase of jewellery, apparel brands or beauty accessories.

Citibank has offers wherein every time the customer swipes her card, the bank contributes a certain amount to women-specific NGOs such as Society for Promotion of Area Resource Centers and Friends of Women World Banking.

Then there are microfinance entities — SKS Microfinance, Basix, Spandana Sphoorthy and Cashpore — which lend only to women.
So, if they are giving a loan to build a house, their criteria is that the property will be owned by a woman. Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, who runs Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, has said that in his experience, “This has helped reduce the divorce rates.”

Even brokerage firms are concentrating on women. Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services has three women-only branches.
“We have one at Ville Parle in Mumbai, another at Kochi and a third in Chennai,” said Satish Menon, director-operations at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services. The company also holds seminars to help women understand equity investing and other financial nitty-gritties.

“They are doing business for us,” Menon told DNA. That may be the reason the broking firm did not close down these women-only branches during the financial meltdown when many brokers were slashing the number of branches.