OPINION | Budget 2026 can accelerate women-led financial inclusion across India

There is a timely opportunity to advance women-led development through a sharper focus on economic empowerment.

Each year, the Union Budget sets the direction for India’s economic priorities, with a clear focus on inclusive growth. Successive administrations have rightly recognised women’s economic empowerment as a critical driver of sustainable development and national prosperity. Today, it stands as a foundational pillar of India’s growth story.

Yet one critical dimension remains under-addressed: gender intentionality in the design of financial systems. Gender intentionality is not an add-on or a post-facto correction. It is a design philosophy that places women’s needs, aspirations, and lived realities at the centre of financial products, services, and policies. It requires embedding gender considerations into the architecture of finance itself—from regulation and infrastructure to distribution and delivery. The objective is simple and strategic: to ensure that financial systems work for women at scale.

Moving from Schemes to Systems

As India prepares for the Union Budget 2026, there is a timely opportunity to advance women-led development through a sharper focus on economic empowerment. While rebates and women-focused schemes are welcome, gender intentionality must address deeper financial sector issues.

Two priorities stand out. The first is gender-disaggregated data (GDD) in finance, because only measured metrics of women’s access, usage, and outcomes across financial services can deliver intended results. The second is women-led last-mile delivery. A world-class Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), when supplemented with trusted, well-capacitated “social infrastructure” in the form of women agents, can convert access into adoption and sustained usage, especially for low-income women.

Gender-Disaggregated Data Enables Better Financial Design

Gender-disaggregated data shows how women engage with financial services and where persistent gaps remain. It provides the evidence needed to design suitable products, improve fairness in credit scoring, create responsive policies, and set meaningful gender targets.

The RBI Financial Inclusion (FI) Index is a respected benchmark that tracks access, usage, and quality of financial services across India. However, it does not yet reveal how effectively women are being served. Incorporating a Gender Intentionality Index within the FI Index would close this gap by enabling measurement of indicators such as account ownership, credit access, social security enrolment, workforce diversity, and digital usage.

A gender-responsive FI Index would ensure that India’s digital financial ecosystem grows with transparency, accountability, and women-centred design as national standards. Early progress is visible. The Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises increased guarantee coverage for women-led businesses from 85 to 90 per cent based on insights from gender-disaggregated data. NABARD’s development of a Gender Intentionality Score for regional rural banks, in partnership with Women’s World Banking, further demonstrates that this approach is both feasible and impactful.

Women Are the Social Infrastructure of Finance

The past decade has delivered major gains in financial access. Digital identity, instant payments, direct benefit transfers, and mobile banking have lowered entry barriers for millions of women. The Jan Dhan programme has brought millions into the formal financial system, and the Global Findex shows a substantial narrowing of the gender gap in account ownership.

However, a significant opportunity remains in building financial resilience through greater uptake of credit, pensions, and microinsurance. This requires India’s robust DPI to be supported by trusted, well-trained financial foot soldiers at the last mile—women agents.

Women agents operate as Bima Vahaks, Vitta Sakhis, and UPI Didis, and are a critical link in achieving India’s financial inclusion goals by 2030. Their community presence, trusted relationships, and ability to explain financial and insurance products enable informed decisions and effective claims support, making them indispensable to expanding coverage and strengthening last-mile service delivery.

Priorities to Build Women’s Financial Resilience

Evidence from Jan Dhan Plus shows that women agents outperform men and build stronger trust across payments, savings, insurance, and credit. Maharashtra’s UMED–State Rural Livelihood Mission demonstrates how BC Sakhis can complement DPI as social infrastructure, delivering higher transaction volumes and broader service coverage.

To realise the vision of “Insurance for All by 2047”, this Union Budget must provide renewed momentum by prioritising women as Bima Vahaks; creating structured incentives and career pathways; leveraging Self-Help Groups and SRLM platforms as official distribution partners; establishing state-level metrics for women-led outreach, enrolment, and renewal; and equipping women agents with digital tools and training for claims support and product navigation.

This Budget offers an opportunity for decisive, data-driven action—strengthening women’s financial resilience and investing in the social infrastructure that enables women to participate fully and confidently in India’s financial system, aligned with the Panch Jyoti framework for the next chapter of financial inclusion.

(Kalpana Ajayan, Regional Head- South Asia, Women’s World Banking.)

Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.