Informal Financial Services in the Financial Inclusion Matrix: Gendered Perspectives from Kenya and Zimbabwe

The prominence of informal financial services in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and indeed most of Africa is undeniable. The use of informal financial services such as table banking and local savings groups has long been a feature in the financial lives of many Africans, and is particularly popular among women who have historically had to devise ways around cultural and patriarchal structures erected in many spheres, including finance. Informal financial services are also prominent in rural settings where financial inclusion has long been a challenge owing to geographical and infrastructural challenges and the supposed high cost of serving small savers. In the global scene, powerful proponents of financial inclusion frame it in terms of formal financial services. For this reason and others, financial exclusion is deemed a particular problem in Africa despite the rampant use of informal financial services; higher-up proponents of financial inclusion would rather have it that financially excluded women abandon informal services which they are much familiar with and ascend to bank accounts and other formal financial services which they often mistrust or may be inconvenient for their purposes. While acknowledging some of the arguments put forward in the literature about the quality and adequacy of informal financial services, their enduring dominance remains irrefutable. This chapter therefore takes a step back to assess the confluence of informal financial services in Africa and the global discourse on financial inclusion with particular reference to women. The chapter argues that informal financial services continue to play a salient role among women even in the face of rapid adoption of financial technology and a fast-developing financial industry in the continent. The chapter also argues for a broader understanding of financial inclusion with reference to women in Africa and the exploration of synergetic opportunities between informal and formal financial structures as a path to achieving true financial inclusion for women.