Newsletter

This year, ConsumerCentriX continued to contribute to the global dialogue on inclusive finance and entrepreneurship by sharing evidence-based insights and practical lessons learned from field experience, as well as contributing to collective strategies that can scale inclusion sustainably.

Throughout 2025, we engaged in several high-level forums that convened governments, central banks, and private-sector leaders. At the United Nations General Assembly’s Bridgefort Dialogues, co-hosted with the Aspen Institute, ConsumerCentriX highlighted the shift from financial access to financial empowerment, emphasizing that lasting inclusion requires systemic collaboration rather than isolated interventions. At the Global SME Finance Forum, we presented the WSME Segmentation Framework and Toolkit and the INVEST SME Banking Toolkit as examples of how gender-intentional design can help financial institutions expand their markets while deepening social impact.

A major highlight of the year was our strong presence at the Financial Alliance for Women Summit, where our contributions to work on gender-disaggregated data and the WE Finance Code were featured prominently across sessions. We shared practical insights from Bangladesh, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic, and Mongolia, showcasing how national dashboards are driving evidence-based action for women’s financial inclusion. At the Knowledge Café, co-hosted with the Alliance and the WE Finance Code Initiative, we introduced two tools developed by ConsumerCentriX, the WSME Business Case Tool and the Data Mapping Tool, alongside the WSME Segmentation Framework and Toolkit. These contributions reflected our ongoing commitment to translating data into solutions and to advancing the global dialogue on inclusive finance through collaboration and shared learning.

We also participated in the Alliance for Financial Inclusion Global Policy Forum, supporting central banks in developing strategies for integrating gender data, and at the FELABAN Sustainable Finance Forum in the Dominican Republic, where we shared lessons on partnership models and cross-regional learning. Across these platforms, the message remained consistent: inclusion succeeds when financial ecosystems are designed to listen, learn, and adapt.

This growing visibility marked an important evolution for ConsumerCentriX. The organisation’s voice now bridges practice and policy, offering tangible lessons from implementation to inform high-level dialogue. Through our global contributions in 2025, we helped shape not only the conversation about inclusive finance but also the standards by which progress is measured, anchoring our role as both a technical partner and a thought leader in the journey toward equitable financial systems.

Data-driven decision making continues to be a defining pillar of our work. In 2025, ConsumerCentriX deepened its leadership in transforming financial inclusion data into actionable insights that drive systemic change. Working closely with regulators, financial service providers, and other stakeholders across several countries, we helped to address gender financing gaps and embed data-driven decision-making into the global financial sector.

In Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Uganda, ConsumerCentriX has supported the development of Women’s Financial Inclusion Dashboards. These dashboards are designed to support central banks and financial sector coordination bodies to set national targets, monitor progress, and align stakeholders under a shared vision for women’s economic empowerment. They offer a 360-degree view of where barriers persist and where financial inclusion initiatives are having a measurable impact.

Similarly, ConsumerCentriX has supported the development of WSME dashboards across Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan under the WE Finance Code. These dashboards follow the same WE Finance Code-aligned measurement framework and provide regulators and financial institutions with an informed view of women-led and women-owned SMEs, identifying where credit gaps are most acute and which sectors show the highest growth potential. The dashboards allow each country to identify bottlenecks in real time and compare progress across regions, strengthening the evidence base for more inclusive lending practices.

For financial service providers, our data-driven approach goes beyond diagnostics, delivering market intelligence that clarifies the business case for serving women clients. Disaggregated data insights are informing product design, credit scoring, and marketing strategies that better meet women entrepreneurs’ needs, contributing to more inclusive growth across the financial sector.

Together, these initiatives represent a shift from data collection to data-driven accountability, where evidence directly shapes policy, product innovation, and performance tracking. Through this approach, we are empowering our partners to translate data into decisions that expand financial inclusion for women and SMEs at scale.

In 2025, ConsumerCentriX moved from developing analytical frameworks to equipping partners with practical tools that help turn insight into implementation. Building on the research completed the previous year, we focused on dissemination and capacity building, ensuring that the knowledge generated through our work was translated into resources that financial service providers, policymakers, and development actors can apply directly.

The centrepieces of this effort were the WSME Segmentation Framework developed with support from the Argidius Foundation, Dutch Good Growth Fund, and Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, as well as the INVEST: The Process and Toolkit (SME Banking Toolkit) developed in partnership with Dalberg, with support from the Argidius Foundation,  and SME Finance Forum as an implementing partner.

The WSME Segmentation Framework and Toolkit offers a comprehensive methodology for understanding the diversity of women-led enterprises and designing products that respond to their specific needs. What began as an evidence-driven research initiative has become an actionable guide with practical steps for identifying segments, diagnosing growth constraints, and shaping gender-intentional value propositions. Throughout the year, we contributed to efforts to introduce the toolkit to practitioners in Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America through dissemination workshops that helped institutions move from theory to operational design.

In parallel, we supported the development of the INVEST: the Process and Toolkit. Structured around six drivers of SME banking success, INVEST helps institutions understand their SME markets and strengthen their value propositions with clarity and commercial focus. The toolkit served as a practical reference point for partners looking to improve how they assess the SME opportunity, refine customer targeting, and embed data-driven decision-making into their operations.

A key part of this effort involved sharing both resources through global learning platforms. This year, ConsumerCentriX contributed to the SME Finance Forum’s SME Banking Masterclass, where senior leaders from more than 200 financial institutions explored how stronger business models and better segmentation can drive SME portfolio performance. Using the INVEST Toolkit, our team demonstrated how SME data analytics support portfolio understanding and value proposition design. We also introduced the WSME Segmentation Framework and Toolkit to practitioners seeking more targeted and relevant approaches to serving women-led enterprises. These engagements helped embed both toolkits within wider industry practice and reinforced their role as practical guides for building more inclusive and commercially sound SME strategies.

Together, these tools continued to support a shift across partner institutions toward more structured, data-driven, and customer-centred approaches to inclusion. Interest in these tools reflected growing demand among financial institutions for practical resources that translate gender-smart insights into decision-making.

For the last two years, ConsumerCentriX has been supporting the implementation of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code, working with financial sector regulators, financial service providers, and other key stakeholders to implement frameworks that strengthen accountability and support women‑led enterprises across markets. Across all engagements, our support remained focused on strengthening gender-disaggregated data systems, promoting collaboration among public and private financial sector ecosystem players, and building the business case for serving women-led enterprises as a strategic growth market rather than a social niche.

Central Asia

In Central Asia, we supported the expansion of the WE Finance Code across Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia, where new coalitions of regulators and financial institutions committed to advancing gender data practices. Uzbekistan marked its first anniversary since its launch by showcasing measurable progress through stronger institutional partnerships, more consistent data quality, and an expanding coalition of financial institutions now integrating gender data into their reporting frameworks. As part of this regional momentum, financial institutions from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Mongolia came together in Samarkand for a training organized by ConsumerCentriX in partnership with the Financial Alliance for Women and IPC, and with funding from the EBRD. The sessions helped institutions strengthen their strategies for serving women-led MSMEs and brought together representatives from WE Finance Code coalitions across the region. ConsumerCentriX shared the WE Finance Code data journey and insights from our work with financial institutions in Central Asia, grounding the discussions in real market experience. The training marked an important step in helping institutions move from commitment to implementation, particularly in how they use data, develop value propositions, and align internal processes to better meet the needs of women entrepreneurs.

WE Finance Code Latin America, Africa, and South Asia

In Latin America, we continued supporting the Dominican Republic in its implementation journey. Following last year’s national launch, efforts in 2025 focused on embedding the Code within partner banks’ data management systems and building practical pathways for product development informed by gender-disaggregated data insights.

Across South Asia and Africa, the WE Finance Code gained momentum across new markets, with Pakistan successfully launching its Code, with our technical assistance to regulators and partner banks to align the national framework with global standards. In Nigeria, CCX built on its earlier work on the development of the national women’s financial inclusion data dashboards, supporting regulators and financial service providers as they take the first coordinated steps toward forming a national coalition for the Code. In Kenya and Uganda, we contributed to awareness and technical sessions to familiarize market actors with the Code’s objectives and tools. The Code has since been launched in Uganda, in an event that saw the Bank of Uganda take on role of Code Champion and 15 signatories commit to the Code.

WE Finance Code Middle East and North Africa

Meanwhile, in the MENA region, ConsumerCentriX continued to contribute to the advancement of the WE Finance Code in 2025, particularly in Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco.  In Morocco, we collaborated closely with key stakeholders to support the national launch and implementation of the WE Finance Code under the country’s Financial Inclusion Strategy.  In Jordan, we are working closely with the Central Bank of Jordan and key partners to strengthen coalitions and promote the use of sex-disaggregated data in financial services. Meanwhile, in Egypt, together with the Central Bank of Egypt, we convened leading banks and non-banking financial institutions to engage in a national dialogue on sex-disaggregated data collection and usage, building on significant advances under Egypt’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy.

Through the scale-up of the WE Finance Code and sustained collaboration with our partners, the WE Finance Code has evolved into a shared global platform for systemic inclusion. Across all regions, our work has focused on supporting financial ecosystem players on aligning data with market realities, helping them recognize that inclusion is not only equitable but also commercially strategic. The growing network of countries demonstrates that when data, collaboration, and business incentives converge, inclusive finance becomes both sustainable and scalable, laying the foundation for lasting transformation in how financial systems serve women entrepreneurs.

Through the Youth in Business program, ConsumerCentriX combines evidence-based market insights with hands-on innovation in both financial and non-financial services. Working with partner financial institutions, the program helps banks and MFIs treat youth entrepreneurs not just as borrowers but as future market builders, pairing access to finance with capacity-building, digital skills, and ecosystem partnerships. This integrated model ensures that support for young business leaders is commercially viable, digitally forward, and responsive to the realities of their “first-time” entrepreneurial journey. The Youth in Business (YiB) Programme continued its steady expansion in 2025, evolving from a regional pilot into a multi-country platform that combines financial access with digital innovation and entrepreneurial learning. Building on strong foundations, ConsumerCentriX and its partners focused this year on scaling non-financial services, strengthening institutional capacity, and helping banks and microfinance institutions design youth-focused business models that are both inclusive and commercially viable.

In partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and IPC, the YiB Programme extended its coverage. Ensuring that support is delivered in response to local market realities, the ConsumerCentriX team in 2025 briefed all leading Turkish banks on the findings of our research into the opportunity constituted by young entrepreneurs.

Covering Georgia, Armenia, and Jordan as well as the West Bank, we documented the urgency for a dedicated approach to this segment at the risk of not merely a missed opportunity but an entire generation turning away from formal business finance. The very detailed assessment of hurdles on the side of entrepreneurs and financial institutions documented by our work clearly presents a picture that regular SME programs fail to resolve. Insights from this type of assessment are now being finalized for Moldova as the 19th country, capping a unique body of knowledge on the needs, challenges, and opportunities presented by this cohort of 18 to 35-year-old entrepreneurs.

Working with a growing number of teams at leading financial institutions provided ample opportunity for putting these insights into practice. In Morocco and the Western Balkans, we onboarded two large Microfinance institutions and the largest bank in one market. This expansion opened new opportunities for peer learning among participating financial institutions, each testing models that integrate financing, training, and digital support for young entrepreneurs.

The 2025 cycle placed particular emphasis on innovation in non-financial services. The AI Bootcamps held in Agadir and Marrakech became flagship events, offering young business owners hands-on experience with artificial intelligence tools to streamline operations, enhance marketing, and strengthen customer engagement. These sessions showed how technology can help level the playing field for youth-led enterprises, equipping participants with the practical digital skills needed to compete in rapidly evolving markets.

Beyond training, the programme continued to mobilize financing for youth entrepreneurship. By the final quarter of 2025, partner financial institutions had disbursed over €19 million to more than 1,700 clients, reflecting strong demand and growing institutional confidence in the youth segment. Several partners secured new or follow-on credit lines, and the first Moroccan institution joined the network, underscoring the programme’s momentum across diverse markets.

Evidence from the YiB Programme also suggests a multiplier effect: as youth-led enterprises grow stronger and more resilient, they tend to create opportunities for other young people, thereby expanding the reach of inclusion through peer-driven employment and collaboration. The success of the YiB Programme has shown that empowering young entrepreneurs requires more than credit. It calls for ecosystems that combine financing with knowledge, mentorship, and technology. Through its integrated approach, ConsumerCentriX is helping redefine how financial institutions engage with the next generation of business leaders. As the programme continues to grow, it is shaping a future where youth entrepreneurship becomes a cornerstone of inclusive, resilient, and innovation-driven economies.