The Select Five Gender Performance Indicators

This paper outlines the approach and findings from a joint survey undertaken by Women’s World Banking and MIX to identify five key gender performance indicators from a set of indicators developed earlier in 2011. These indicators allow financial institutions to analyze outreach to women, suitability of product design to meet women’s needs, product diversity, service quality, client protection, and staff gender diversity. The paper also aims to help understand how serving women clients contributes to their financial sustainability. The survey was sent to 202 MFIs and 86 MFIs responded, out of which 66 institutions with the most complete responses were selected for further analysis. The paper identifies following five key indicators as a starting point for financial institutions that are interested in measuring their gender performance:

• Percent of new women borrowers;
• Average loan size per women borrower;
• Women borrower retention rate;
• Women’s portfolio at risk;
• Women staff retention.