Women Repay SME Loans Better Than Men, Moniepoint 2025 Impact Report Reveals

Women-owned businesses in Nigeria have proven to be significantly more reliable at repaying business loans than those managed by their male counterparts, according to new data published by Nigerian fintech giant Moniepoint.

In its 2025 Impact Report, Moniepoint revealed that female entrepreneurs recorded a default rate 2.5 times lower than male business owners across its lending portfolio. The stark performance gap comes despite women continuing to face institutional barriers to accessing formal financial services and credit.

Key Highlights from the Report:

• Surge in Female Lending: Moniepoint expanded its total lending to female-owned enterprises by over 300% during the year.

• First-Time Credit Inclusion: 62% of surveyed female entrepreneurs stated that the facility received from Moniepoint was the very first formal business loan they had ever accessed.

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• Beating Industry Averages: Women accounted for 36% of all loans disbursed through Moniepoint’s platform, comfortably outperforming the standard industry benchmark of 15% to 25% for female-led MSME allocation.

Bridging the Financial Inclusion Gap

In Nigeria, female-led enterprises account for roughly 33% of the country’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). However, data from EFInA cited in the report highlights a persistent gender disparity in financial access: only 45% of Nigerian women have access to formal financial services, compared to 56% of men.

Traditional commercial banks often lock women out of credit due to stringent collateral requirements and a lack of formal credit histories. To overcome this, Moniepoint leveraged alternative credit assessment models—evaluating real-time digital transaction data rather than physical collateral—to safely deploy credit to previously excluded informal traders.

Reflecting on the findings, Moniepoint asserted:

“We found that the default rate for women was 2.5 times lower than for men. This is definitive evidence that lending to women-owned businesses is sound financial practice.”

A Market-Wide Trend

Moniepoint’s findings echo broader performance data across Nigeria’s credit market:

• Credit Direct 2025 Report: A separate analysis of nearly 300,000 active borrowers by Credit Direct revealed that women received only 26% of total loan disbursements. Yet, female borrowers registered a low 7.8% delinquency rate, compared to 10.9% among men, despite taking slightly higher average loan amounts.

• Development Interventions: Recognizing this untapped economic potential, global development institutions like the African Development Bank (AfDB) recently approved a $61 million financing package for the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) to explicitly expand affordable credit for women-led MSMEs.