Safeguarding women from Abuse in the Financial Ecosystem (Program SAFE)

Our Goal: Program SAFE will transform the financial system so that 100 million women and vulnerable people are safe from financial abuse and gain financial autonomy.

Financial abuse invisibly but acutely disempowers billions of women and other vulnerable people worldwide. Not only does it rob them of their savings and ruin their credit, financial abuse also puts women and their children at risk of physical harm as it deepens their dependence on abusive family members.

Financial abuse also damages the economic stability of the financial sector. Financial institutions do not truly ‘know their customer’ - a stringent requirement of the global system - when abusers manipulate a woman’s account ownership. Furthermore, ensuring women's full financial inclusion would unlock US$700 billion in revenue within the financial system each year, while reducing financial abuse will help stem the 1- 4% of countries’ Gross Domestic Product lost annually to gender-based violence (GBV).

Program SAFE will build the evidence base and broad public awareness of the issue, support stakeholders to put in place critical safeguards, revise international standards on mitigating risks to customers, and leverage prior campaign experience to catalyze change at a systemic level.

Are you interested in supporting or collaborating with Grameen on Program SAFE? Contact Bobbi Gray, Associate Vice President, bgray@grameenfoundation.org