Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

Posted: lundi 16 février 2026, 13:08

Despite the persistent global gender gap in financial inclusion and the increasing evidence from international research that gender has a bearing on the performance and sustainability of the financial sector, most supervisors remain blind to gender differences in their analyses.

The following video explores why it is necessary to consider gender in prudential supervision of Digital Financial Services (DFS). It stresses the importance of identifying and addressing potential gender-based disparities for effective financial prudential supervision.
It then provides examples of the kinds of questions supervisors can seek to answer with gender-disaggregated data to aid them in their prudential supervisory activities.
In the video, we also highlight how incorporating gender perspectives in prudential supervisory analyses can support financial inclusion, inclusive competition, sustainability, and market efficiency.

If you have trouble playing this video, you can access an alternative player here.

Click to view the transcript.

Additional Reading:

You can read more about gender in prudential supervision in the following resources:

Alonso, T. and Dezso, D. 2024, Suppl-Side Gender Disaggregated Data for Advancing Financial Inclusion: Insights and Areas for Further Research. CGAP Publication. https://www.cgap.org/research/publication/supply-side-gender-disaggregated-data-for-advancing-financial-inclusion
Izaguirre, J.C. and Dias, D. 2025, How Can Financial Authorities Use Gender Data to Fulfill Diverse Mandates? CGAP Blog. https://www.cgap.org/blog/how-can-financial-authorities-use-gender-data-to-fulfill-diverse-mandates
Dias, D. 2026. Upcoming Publication, CGAP

Reflection Questions for Discussion

Please post your response using the forum functionality to share your insights and thoughts with your fellow students.

Which aspect of, or risk, covered by prudential supervision should be a priority for a gradual incorporation of the gender perspective, with the purpose of enhancing supervisory analyses?

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Erah, Dominic Ose Erah, lundi 2 mars 2026, 18:59 Group 1

A priority area for gradually incorporating a gender perspective into prudential supervision is credit risk, where sex disaggregated analysis of lending patterns, portfolio quality and consumer outcomes can significantly enhance supervisory insight and reveal structural vulnerabilities.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par AISHA UMARU HADEJIA, mardi 3 mars 2026, 14:02 Group 1

One priority is credit risk, supervisors/regulators should incorporate gender disaggregagted data into loan approval rates, default trends. This would help detect potential biases in credit scoring models and lending practices, improving both inclusion and risk assesment.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Sarim Ali, mardi 3 mars 2026, 15:33 Group 5

From a prudential perspective, credit risk would be the most practical starting point for gradually incorporating a gender lens. Analysing non-performing loans, over-indebtedness patterns, and repayment behaviour across different gender and income groups can enhance risk assessments while also informing more sustainable lending practices.

This approach allows supervisors to strengthen portfolio quality analysis and, at the same time, support inclusive and responsible access to credit.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Michael Sserwanga Sserwanga, mercredi 4 mars 2026, 07:54 Group 4

Operational risk would be a priority for gradual incorporation of the gender perspective, as supervisors can explore whether women customers are more exposed to fraud risks in digital channels for example as a result of social engineering

This is because of the rapidly expanding Digital Financial Services that make operational risk increasingly material, especially through SIM swap fraud, and other digital scams.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Usman Bayero , mercredi 4 mars 2026, 09:39 Group 1

An important area is operational and governance riks, particularly around AI driven decision making. Incorporating gender lens into model validation and internal controls can help supervisors assess whether algorithms are producing unequal outcomes, which may create reputational and conduct risks that ultimately affect financial stability.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par LEILAH ABDALAH MUBEYA, mercredi 4 mars 2026, 14:15 Group 6

Credit risk should be prioritized because it is core to financial stability.
Adding a gender perspective to lending and default analysis can reveal biases, improve risk assessment, and strengthen institutional resilience.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Aboo Badhasa Aboma, mardi 10 mars 2026, 16:43 Group 2

For the gradual incorporation of a gender perspective into prudential supervision, the operational risk category—specifically focusing on cybersecurity and digital fraud—should be the primary priority for enhancing supervisory analyses. While prudential supervision traditionally focuses on institutional stability, the disproportionate vulnerability of women to social engineering and digital scams in Ethiopia’s DFS ecosystem creates systemic "trust risks" that can lead to mass account abandonment and liquidity volatility. By integrating gender-disaggregated data into operational risk assessments, the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) can better identify whether certain provider infrastructures or agent networks inadvertently expose female users to higher rates of unauthorized transactions. Ultimately, this granular analysis allows supervisors to move beyond "gender-neutral" stability checks to a more sophisticated, risk-based oversight that ensures the resilience of the entire financial consumer base, thereby protecting the long-term solvency of the institutions themselves.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Faith Fxentirimam Envuladu, mercredi 11 mars 2026, 13:26 Group 1

Credit risk assessment is the most important risk element for effective gender perspective implementation in prudential supervision. The reason behind this is that lenders base their decisions on gender biases, which will result in incorrect risk evaluations when bias factors remain unaddressed.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Lucy Kihembo, mercredi 11 mars 2026, 16:32 Group 4

Operational risk, particularly cyber-fraud, is an important area where a gender perspective could enhance supervisory analysis. Supervisors could analyse whether cyber-fraud incidents disproportionately target certain groups by gender and examine patterns in fraud reporting, for example, whether women or men are more likely to report fraud cases. In contexts such as Uganda, this analysis could also consider risks affecting women’s savings groups and village savings and loan associations, which are predominantly composed of women. Understanding these patterns can help supervisors identify vulnerable segments and strengthen supervisory responses to digital fraud risks.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par KABIRU MUDASHIRU, samedi 14 mars 2026, 14:45 Group 1

Credit risk is a significant activities of FSPs, so for indepth analysis of performance and furure decision gender disaggreation data should be incorporated.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Elsabet Getachew Mulugeta, dimanche 15 mars 2026, 16:29 Group 2

Prioritize operational resilience and client asset safeguarding for digital intermediaries; add a minimal gender lens to onboarding, safeguarding outcomes, incident impacts, and complaints; use the results to sharpen risk based supervision and thematic inspections.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Elsabet Assefa , jeudi 19 mars 2026, 08:15 Group 2

Credit risk (at the financial service provider level).
It should be the priority for gradual gender incorporation: multiple targeted questions concrete supervisory benefits, and real-world examples. These directly enhance prudential analyses, performance evaluation, and policy adjustments while supporting both soundness and inclusion.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Damaris Kasyoka Mwaniki, jeudi 19 mars 2026, 19:52 Group 3

Gradual incorporation of credit risk in prudential supervision should be a priority in enhancing supervisory analysis. It helps supervisors to make their analyses more inclusive and precise.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Agaba Albert Busingye Agaba, lundi 23 mars 2026, 17:57 Group 4

Operational risk should be prioritized for gradual incorporation of the gender perspective, supervisors need to prioritize the assessment of cyber security risks, money laundering incidences and advanced digital or information systems that collect gradually data to support the supervisor's assessment of gender savings, gender involvement in frauds and which genders are high risk to hackers or fraudsters and the data reported in the system would aid the categorization of customer data used to help in credit underwriting to access credit and determine the gender that defaults and successfully pay back. Supervisors can then identify the vulnerable areas and advise or guide DFS providers on mitigating the risks to protect the operations of the service providers.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Aisha Kabir Ahmed, mercredi 25 mars 2026, 10:52 Group 1

A key concern is operational and governance risk, especially in AI-driven decision-making. Applying a gender lens to model validation and internal controls helps supervisors detect biased outcomes that could create reputational, conduct, and ultimately financial stability risks.

Re: Incorporating Gender Perspectives in Prudential Supervision

par Ahmed Jibrel Yeha, vendredi 3 avril 2026, 23:26 Group 2

gradual incorporation of gender perspectives helps to understand performance of DFS providers which is important for risk assessment and to check long run systemic stability and resilient.

Course Navigator