THE share of Fijians with a loan from a formal financial institution is very low at just 9 per cent.
And for women, this percentage is even lower and there is a gender gap among both adults and youth – less than 6 per cent of young women and 6.6 per cent of adult women have a loan account as comparted to 8.3 per cent of male youth and 11.6 per cent of adult men.
These were revealed in the Gender Finance Inclusion Report recently published by the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), which explored the supply of financial services to women and women-owned MSMEs in the country.
“The retail lending portfolio of licensed financial institutions shows a much higher number of loans allocated to men than to women, equivalent to 51 per cent of total retail loans at commercial banks and 48.5 per cent at credit institutions, in comparison to 26.7 and 29.5 per cent for women, respectively,” the study found.
“This pattern also exists for loans to 15–35-year-olds, showing that the gender credit gap affects all age demographics across different types of financial institutions.”
The report stated that out of total loans issued by commercial banks and credit institutions, the number of loans to women was much lower than loans to men.
“At commercial banks, the average loan size disbursed to women is also much smaller than the average loan to men — roughly $11,500 versus $19,000 or 40 per cent lower.
“A very similar pattern and gender gap exists for youth.
“Among credit institutions, only one provided data on the value of its retail loan. The total amount disbursed to men is a larger= share of the retail portfolio but loan sizes to women and men are similar.”
The report had also noted that women remain underserved with less of them in the 15-35 age brackets having bank accounts, and that women-owned businesses also had less access to capital, irrespective of turnover and loan documentation.
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Note: This article was first published under the headline: Not many Fijians with loan accounts in Page 13 of the print version of The Fiji Times dated Wednesday, October 1, 2025
