The Federal Government has challenged banks, fintechs and payment operators to rethink how they finance women-led businesses, pointing to a potential $14.8 billion annual financing opportunity that remains largely untapped.
Speaking at the Second National Gender Inclusion Conference in Abuja, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, argued that the challenge is not a lack of ambition among Nigerian women, but financial systems that are often designed around traditional requirements such as collateral.
The government is calling for alternative approaches, including alternative-data credit scoring, guarantee-backed lending and low-cost interoperable payment systems that can reach women through the devices and financial channels they already use.
The scale of existing programmes shows the potential. The Nigeria for Women Project Scale-Up now reaches 4.5 million women through 300,000 groups, while participating women have collectively saved more than ₦4.9 billion and accessed about ₦15.6 billion in livelihood grants, according to the minister.
The private sector is expected to play a central role. Vice President Kashim Shettima’s representative said that while government can establish the rules, scaling women’s economic inclusion will require the capital, technology and discipline of banks, fintechs, investors and development partners.
The gap extends beyond traditional lending. The Securities and Exchange Commission said women account for only 12–15% of participation in corporate institutions, less than 7% of executive positions, and below 5% of those accessing capital to raise funds.
For Nigeria, the message is increasingly economic rather than simply social: if financial institutions can build products around the realities of women-owned businesses, the country could unlock a significant pool of previously underserved entrepreneurs and productive capital.
The opportunity now is to move from inclusion as a policy objective to inclusion as a scalable financial market.
