Women Outreach Exploration: Evidence from Islamic Microfinance in Indonesia

Recent global investigations have explored a gender gap in Islamic microfinance outreach, with Indonesia presenting a significant exception. With outreach to over 11 million women, Indonesian Islamic microfinance has exhibited rapid growth. Therefore, this study aimed to comprehensively analyze six key dimensions of women outreach with Islamic microfinance in Indonesia, leveraging diverse datasets from performance reports, financial statements, interviews, and literature reviews. The results uncovered 93 institutions with various characteristics each excelling in specific outreach aspects. Larger institutions performed exceptionally in terms of outreach breadth, while the majority of smaller ones excelled in depth. Cooperative legal entity NGOs showed excellence in outreach scope, whereas those operating as banks exhibited remarkable performance in managing costs. Regarding the worth of outreach, most literature explored positive impacts, with a few warranting attentions. In addition, high-interest rates/margins, coercive debt collection practices, and overindebtedness were some of the negative aspects, particularly in regions marked by intense competition among institutions.