Mobile Money for Empowerment Muslim Women Entrepreneur: Evidence from Asia (Indonesia and Bangladesh)

This paper analyzes the role that mobile banking can play in the empowerment of Muslim women entrepreneurs on the basis of evidence from two Asian countries: Bangladesh and Indonesia. In particular, the paper identifies and discusses the characteristics and position of women entrepreneurs and the role of mobile banking in present conditions, especially in green finance policies. It also evaluates how mobile banking can be used to provide value added services for women entrepreneurs and provides recommendations for designing mobile banking policies that are centered on women entrepreneurs. Some key highlights from the paper include:

• Mobile banking requires an integrated approach, thus a successful program should be accompanied with strong partners mainly technology providers;
• Mobile banking addresses the two major problems associated with conventional (micro) saving products: cost and access;
• Formal banking sectors should do more collaboration with MFIs to establish mobile banking for disadvantaged women entrepreneur and their development;
• As the initial investment is very high and it mostly acts as a sunk investment, reaching as much clients as possible and maintaining a request relationship is very crucial for the sustainability of a mobile banking operation.