‘Zambia needs safe financial services’

FINANCIAL services should be designed with great care to avoid harmful outcomes to families and particularly women.

This is according to the Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Zambia Survey results on gender, social norms and financial decision making in Zambia.

According to FSD Zambia, the survey results gave insight into how it could directly engage financial inclusion interventions with the normative environment of communities within which financial decisions were made.

The survey also showed that spouses were willing to sacrifice household-level income to maintain individual control over money, viewing control of income to power in the household.

FSD Zambia Chief Executive Officer, Betty Wilkinson, said, “This research is the first of its kind, and the findings are fundamental to addressing financial health for Zambians.

“We need to work harder on addressing misunderstandings between husbands and wives, so they can both be more effective in managing household income and create gender-balanced family harmony.”

FSD Zambia Director – Analytics, Floyd Mwansa, said the design of financial products and services must incorporate social norms as they related to household level dynamics and that this research provided the evidence.

Mr Mwansa said: “This is necessary if we are to close the gender gap in financial inclusion.”

The results from the survey indicated that individuals preferred to have smaller amounts of money in their own hands rather than larger sums in their spouses’ hands, due to both perceptions that spouses spend money on unimportant items, and individual desires to have full control over money.

Additionally, it was revealed that there is a social norm that forbids spouses to save money in secret.

“Therefore, it is appropriate for both wives and husbands to save and let their spouses know that they are saving separately in order to avoid a backlash, especially on women spouses.

“Both men and women believe household unity and peace depend on the agreement in financial decision making,” read the survey results in part.