Institutions that provide financial services are in a unique position to help women who have had their domestic partners or others manipulate their access to money. Thus financial services providers (FSPs) have a responsibility to take concrete actions to prevent instances of financial abuse - and to help victims after abuse has begun.However, the moral argument is not the only one: Minimizing financial abuse can benefit the FSP by increasing repayment rates and client loyalty. Meanwhile, it's important to realize that women are often more open to reporting financial abuse to their FSP than to the police.
An easy way for an institution to start fighting financial abuse is to raise awareness of it among staff. Women don’t always realize right away that they are being abused, and your institution likely has staff as well as customers who are being abused. Partnering with an NGO that specializes in abuse prevention can be very helpful, such as resulted in this series of awareness-raising cat videos (in French with English subtitles).
Other practices FSPs may wish to adopt include:
- Not letting customers cancel their partners' cards,
- Forgiving bad credit history caused by abuse,
- Providing customers a confidential way to report abuse and
- Targeting financial education to households rather than individuals.
This content was delivered by presenters at European Microfinance Week 2024, which is hosted by the European Microfinance Platform. The e-MFP has about 120 members, each of which supports the provision of financial services in lower income countries.
