Access to women Banking

The image captures the team in charge of a Women's Banking arm, which is dedicated to championing women's access to custom financing products and entrepreneurial development opportunities, an opportunity that is limited in Nigeria.

The images capture Abiodun Olubitan and her team at Access Bank's Women's Banking arm, 'W', a women dedicated Banking service focused on championing women's access to custom financing products and entrepreneurial development opportunities.

Access to financing products such as loans have been a major limitation for women in business in Nigeria. This has been a major expression of the challenge of gender inequality, with many finance institutions being unwelcoming to providing women with loans needed to upscale their business. Many businesses run by women have been kept on the same level or even forced to pack up when the founders do not have funds needed to maintain or upscale the business.

Access W Banking has stepped in to bridge this gap by providing a custom women Banking platform to support women in business.

Through the W Banking, women have access to loans with lesser interest rate and highly flexible repayment plan. Also several initiatives are launched to educate and empower women in entrepreneurship and create networking opportunities for them. Special seminars, events, masterclasses and mentorship programmes are constantly put in place by the team to create endless opportunities for women in business and there are several succces stories.

Through the Access W initiative, the bank discovered that women have proven to do better at servicing and repaying their loans and achieving stated results for which the loans where acquired even much better than the male gender. With this discovery the bank have concentrated more efforts in making financing opportunities available for women through the 'W' Banking.

Access W is the only dedicated Banking platform for women in Nigeria and through this Abiodun Olubitan, head of the Access W and her team are closing the gender gap in business and entrepreneurship making it possible for more women to thrive in business.