With the theme of “recover together, recover stronger”, Indonesia will oversee the six priority agendas and follow-up agendas to be discussed in the working groups. Among its major focuses are digital financial inclusion, payment systems in the digital era, sustainable finance, the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and digital transformation.

The importance of digitalization and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues for attaining sustainable economic growth has been a concern for many stakeholders. The global pandemic over the past two years has led to incremental pushes toward digital transformations, as most economic activities are executed in a non-physical manner. This includes digital transactions through payment systems, which ultimately affects digital financial inclusion. Digitalization is deemed to help boost human productivity, which includes better economic conditions for underserved populations, such as social cash transfers and assistance for the poor and vulnerable, women, young people as well as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

As a country that has seen robust improvements in the area of financial inclusion, Indonesia aims to accelerate this through social assistance, financial services and transactions and MSMEs and small business involvement. However, there are large sections of the population that are prone to discrimination in accessing Indonesia’s financial services (Gitaharie, Soelistianingsih and Djutaharta, 2017), comprising the poor and vulnerable, women and rural populations. Hence, there are still substantial gaps that need to be filled, especially in female participation in financial literacy and inclusion.

There are disparities in regulations worldwide because of the gender gap in financial inclusion. This has meant women have limited access to financial services and bank accounts, which affects their independence and ability to manage their income and financial decisions, both personally and within their households, according to 2012 World Bank data. Widening gender gaps in financial service usage shows that women are closer to informal financial institutions and have less access to credit and financing in entrepreneurial activities in many parts of the world. Furthermore, this limits female social mobility as well as interaction between the genders, yet equal access to economic and financial resources is crucial to achieving sustainable economic growth and development.

And female users face yet more digital and technology challenges.

Based on GSMA findings in 2020, the gender gap in mobile phone ownership remained large, with many still unconnected and difficult to reach — particularly women in low and middle-income countries. Approximately 165 million fewer women than men own mobile phones, in a world where 2.9 billion people had access to the internet on their mobile phones and/or gadgets.

Although awareness of access to mobile internet is rapidly growing, there is still unequal access despite both genders seeing internet connection as increasingly necessary in their lives. Women are still less likely to purchase their own smartphone and have less independence in acquiring their own smartphone, although many show a strong intention of having one. This may be because women tend to be based in the domestic sphere and are responsible for the household, hence their smartphone or mobile usage is often shared with their children or other members of the family, especially as remote learning and working from home has become more common, while their male counterparts, who are seen as the breadwinner, tend to be less likely to share their mobile phones due to the need of being reachable or connected to their work and workplaces. 

However, data from previous studies also show that mobile phone ownership has a positive effect for women as they can increase income and consumption, while playing a fundamental role in the household (Fanta & Kingstone Mutsonziwa, 2016; Suri & Jack, 2016). Other studies also show that women are significantly better at household asset management than men, and assigning women to manage assets can boost household expenditure significantly (Setyari et al., 2018; Pangaribowo, Tsegai, & Sukamdi, 2019).

In Indonesia, working women rely heavily on smartphones for work, based on a Qualcomm report. Almost all Indonesian women use their phones for work (97 percent) and consider their phones important for their work lives (91 percent).

Therefore, it is crucial that digital inclusivity is expanded for women, not just in having access to mobile phones, but also to electronic money, digital banking accounts and financial services.

Abor et al. in 2018 stated that mobile phones can improve access to financial services for female-headed households. Studies have also shown that more efforts are needed to ensure financial intermediaries are involved in female participation in financial systems, especially better access to mobile money (Rahadiantino & Rini, 2020). Hence, a broader effort in global digital literacy is needed to ensure lower gender divides, so that no one is left behind in adapting to the disruptions and new normal measures of the future. Gender gaps in access to opportunities and unequal access to digital transformation, particularly in financial services, should not become larger, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the increasing number of female MSME entrepreneurs, it will also help the informal economy to accelerate into more sizable businesses and will open up more access to both local and international markets.

As the G20 president, which is pushing financial inclusion issues as one of its primary focuses this year, Indonesia needs to address the gender gap issue. Better financial literacy and inclusion, especially for women, would help sustainable economic recovery as the world is ready to regain and accelerate growth post-COVID-19. This will also benefit the SDGs target, which aims to provide women equal access and rights to economic resources and stronger ownership in a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

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The writer is a public policy analyst at the Mandiri Institute, an independent research think tank of Bank Mandiri, focusing on public policy, the financial and banking sector.