Women’s economic empowerment is tied to their agency—their ability to make financial decisions and control resources. This extends to their active participation in the economy through self-employment and entrepreneurship. According to the 2025 Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE),  nationwide, women entrepreneurs run 21.38 million proprietary establishments. However, their capacity to scale their enterprises beyond the household where they often operate remains limited. Mobility and time restrictions imposed by the unpaid domestic labour and care responsibilities they perform limit their access to the commercial public sphere, including infrastructure, markets, and entrepreneurial communities that could offer knowledge and opportunities. Moreover, the structural push towards digitisation assumes a level of technological familiarity that leaves women behind.   

Consider the case of Meena, who operates a home-based beauty parlour in a small town in Gujarat. She does not consider herself an “entrepreneur” and is hesitant to invest in the equipment that would enable her to grow her business. She has a bank account under the PM Jan-Dhan Yojana; it remains dormant. Household responsibilities and caring for her children place competing demands on her time. Worried about the cost of failure, she feels unqualified to make decisions for business growth. Her poor confidence leads her to self-select out of the credit market.

A critical lever to build financial confidence in Meena and her peers is to create avenues for peer engagement. Peer communities can give women a safe environment for information sharing, problem-solving, and learning, thereby strengthening their financial literacy, resilience, ambition, and entrepreneurial energy, and stimulating financial services uptake. For fintechs, building women-centric engagement channels can help understand how women work, live, and socialise. They see better customer retention and long-term growth when they tailor their engagement and product design to women’s competencies and preferences. The following are strategies that have worked for fintechs in the early stages and can serve as starting points for startups to improve customer adoption.

Creating and leveraging offline and online communities 

Partnering with NGOs, banking networks, women entrepreneurship cells, and State Rural Livelihood Missions can help fintechs build connections through established touchpoints and trusted community members. For instance, Rang De has partnered with NGOs, cooperatives, and SHGs across 18 Indian states to engage with borrowers, deepen its understanding of what women need, and build credit solutions accordingly. Creating online communities through established digital communication channels, such as WhatsApp, that women are accustomed to using, reduces the technical burden of onboarding them. For instance, HerMoneyTalks has leveraged WhatsApp communities, Telegram groups, mailing lists, and SMS lists to connect over 100,000 women to financial institutions, resources, and networks.

Co-designing women-centric digital financial solutions

Women-centric participatory spaces can generate vital insights on their digital financial proficiencies and skills, and what they want and need from their digital financial solutions.  By learning about their personal experiences, goals, concerns, and social circumstances, fintechs can tailor their products and services to address women’s needs. They can create voice- and vernacular language-based communication channels that enable women to express themselves more effectively. Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, for instance, launched a mobile banking app that allows customers to access financial services and transact via audio in their native languages.

Reducing informational asymmetries through learning

Fintechs can deepen the value women get from showing up by creating avenues for shared learning on subjects such as finance, entrepreneurship, and business management. They can thus improve their skills, confidence, and financial decision-making capacity. Case in point, Mahila Money has built a community of over a million women entrepreneurs who come together to access educational content on finance, discuss their financial needs and experiences, and guide one another on business growth. It is vital that learning becomes an ongoing activity, embedded in the transactional context through soft nudges and sustained reinforcement.

Prioritising connection and attention

Giving women the safe space to ask questions, engage with other women, and get comfortable with finances strengthens their confidence. Allowing women time to discover their appetite for financial decision-making deepens trust and the value the fintech delivers. Contrary to traditional techniques of hard selling for financial services uptake, it is essential to prioritise connection over the transaction. Peer networks offer social proof of the merit of digital financial solutions. Having a community to look to for success stories, aspirational figures, and allies enables women to get more than just financial value from the fintech product or service. As the community net deepens and women gain access to consistent peer support, they are less likely to withdraw from using digital financial services.

Peer engagement is not without its limitations. Women’s access to and trust in peer communities are shaped by caste, religion, and location, which can become exclusionary forces, restricting the autonomy and recognition they are accorded. Moreover, community-building as a mechanism to chart paths to women’s economic empowerment necessitates going beyond onboarding and education. Women require market and infrastructure access,  linkages to trade and vendor platforms, and structural recognition as serious entrepreneurs. 

As women strengthen their ambition, resilience and risk appetite, their adoption of digital financial solutions has the potential to catalyse their entrepreneurial and occupational success. Creating peer and community engagement asks for intentionality and care. By developing these spaces, fintechs not only acquire users but also champion women’s financial agency.

(Published May 2026)