There has been a gradual increase in women’s share in bank credit in India in recent years. However, the increase in men’s share has been greater, rendering a widening gender gap. The credit received by women is only 27 per cent of the deposits they contribute as compared to 52 per cent for men. Although the policy of financial inclusion has significantly enhanced the probability of women holding bank deposits, a similar effect is missing with regard to women accessing bank credit. For inclusion to be meaningful for women, there is a need to make the policy more gender-sensitive as well as to correct its disproportionate thrust on deposits.

This paper analyses the Indian banking policy from a gender-based perspective and quantifies the gender gap in banking services. The term gender gap is defined flexibly in the context of each banking service discussed in the paper. It broadly suggests the gap between the coverage of/access to a given banking service for women vis-à-vis men. While the paper discusses all major banking services, including deposit, credit and payments services, it focuses on credit as credit supports both production-related activities and consumption smoothing, particularly when the social security system is weak.

Section 2 of the paper discusses major phases in the Indian banking policy since bank nationalisation — a major landmark in India’s social banking history. It illustrates the changing perception about banks as purveyors of basic banking services to the Indian population, women included. The section also details the banking policies that were specifically directed towards women. Section 3 discusses the literature on women’s access to banking in India. The literature is relatively limited, partly owing to data limitations; the issues concerning data on women’s banking are discussed in Section 4. Sections 5 and 6 analyse women’s access in relation to men to each of the banking services using data from various international and national sources. Section 7 estimates various predictors of access to banking for women. Section 8 concludes.

Pallavi Chavan examines women’s access to banking in India in this draft paper, presented originally at the conference titled Women’s Work in Rural Economies and organised by the Foundation.