DP16270 The fintech gender gap

• Sharon Chen Sebastian Doerr Jon Frost Leonardo Gambacorta Hyun Song Shin
16 Jun 2021

Fintech promises to spur financial inclusion and close the gender gap in access to financial services. Using novel survey data for 28 countries, this paper finds a large ‘fintech gender gap’: while 29% of men use fintech products and services, only 21% of women do. The gap is present in almost every country in our sample. Country characteristics and several individual-level controls explain about a third of the unconditional gap. Gender differences in the willingness to use new financial technology or fintech entrants if they offer cheaper services account for over half of the remaining gap. The paper concludes by suggesting potential explanations for the gender gap and implications for challenges in fostering financial inclusion with new technology.