The Red de Instituciones Financieras de Desarrollo (RFD), a non-profit organization that brings together more than 50 financial institutions – including banks, cooperatives and NGOs – signed an agreement with IDB Invest with the objective of providing advisory services to measure development gender bias in lending using an online tool developed by IDB.

The survey tool measures the implicit and explicit gender biases of financial institutions staff, as well as the probability that these biases affect their behavior. Survey results are validated using historical data on loan approvals made by loan officers. It is also possible to quantify the potential profit loss for the financial entity, due to less favorable conditions offered to businesses led by women.

Among the purposes of this agreement is to increase access to financing for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) led by women in Ecuador. These advisory services are being financed by the WeForLAC fund as part of the Funding Initiative for Women Entrepreneurs (WeFi).