WOMEN IN THE MONEY TRANSFER INDUSTRY

In the last months we have seen a great movement by women to raise their voices and demand that institutions, companies and society in general, pays attention to their demands, needs and their equal place in the decisions that we as humans are taking with respect to the world we want to live in and the future we want.

We started to reflect in this with respect to the Monet Transfer & Cross-Border Payments Industry and we have decided to create the Women in the Money Transfer Industry Awards, to be given at the IMTC WORLD conference in Miami which is held every November. This will not be a contest but a nomination-by-peers type of Awards, highlighting women by regions of the world, to bring forward their names and their personal histories.

To start, I have decided to highlight a few of these pioneer women. Please forgive my ignorance if I am missing some of you, it is not on purpose. Please let us know the ones we are missing!

SHARE OF WOMEN IN THE FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRIES

Last week in London I was amazed by the media coverage and the constant mentioning of Women’s Day at the Finnovate Europe conference I attended. After someone mentioned at the event that Women’s Share of Employment in Financial and Insurance Activities was 59% in countries like Finland and 41% in Switzerland with UK seating close to the bottom at 43%, I decided to look for this data which I found (see table).

The women in the US Financial Services Industry seems very close to the number in the middle of this table with Accountants and Auditors at 61.3%, Financial Managers at 52.5% and Financial Analysts at 36.9%. But like in the rest of the world, US women’s representation in financial services senior leadership roles remains very low. In Canada women held 20.8% of board seats in 2014 with women holding only 25% of senior-management roles in the global financial services industry.

There are tons of data and great articles analyzing the role of women in financial services . My intentions are just to compare these numbers with the Money Transfer Industry where there is no data except for the number of female participants in the industry’s main events, the International Money Transfer & Cross-Border Payments Conferences, IMTC. Since 2011, the percentage of women at IMTC has been very steady, with 75.3% male participants, and 24.7% female participants. Since participants are mostly senior management, these figures are close to the average number for the global financial services industry. I initially though that it was lower for the Money Transfer Industry, before analyzing these numbers.

SHARE IN THE MT INDUSTRY

If we compare these numbers throughout the events IMTC has developed in different parts of the world, we can see that for the US, Europe and Latin America, the same overall share holds, 25% female and 75% male. It does drop a little in our Asia & Africa events down to 21.7% female to 78.3% male. When we look at the titles of the participants by gender we see that it is only in the Compliance Field where women’s share is more than 50%.

In order to highlight the women in the Money Transfer Industry we have decided to create the Women in the Money Transfer Industry Awards, to be given at the IMTC WORLD conference in Miami which is held every November. This will not be a contest but a nomination-by-peers type of Awards, highlighting women by regions of the world, to bring forward their names and their personal histories. We also want to highlight the companies in the industry that go out of their way to promote women, their participation, their work, even the services and promotions to them, like Mother’s Day or International Woman’s day to mention the two most prominent.
To start, I have decided to highlight a few of these pioneer women. You might feel that this selection is biased, and I will have to agree. It is biased by my knowing of them, some which I have met, some I have worked with, some I have listened to in events across the many years in the industry. Some I wish to meet one day. Please forgive my ignorance if I am missing some of you, it is not on purpose. Please, do contact me and let me know. We are opening in our webpage a nomination contact form, so you can submit the names of the ladies that we should consider for the Awards next November.

EUROPE

Catherine Wines

In Europe I must mention three women that have forged a name in the industry. Let me start with Catherine Wines, Director & Co-Founder of WorldRemit, a leader in the online money transfer space with HQs in London. Her recent March 8^th article[1] about women entitled “Time to recognise migrant women’s contribution” is just an example of her leadership. In a podcast this past January[2], she described how she used to work in another company doing remittances, “the old fashioned way”, how she met Ismail Ahmed and shared the idea of bringing remittance into the 21st century by bringing the industry online. I had the honor of meeting Ismail & Catherine a few months later in 2011 at their small office in London where they were processing their first orders.

[1]Time to recognise migrant women’s contribution- Catherine Wines –  http://bit.ly/2Fs8kWO
[2]WorldRemit’s Catherine Wines: ‘We’re trying to make money transfer as easy as sending texts’ – Tearsheet – http://bit.ly/2patCgH

Linda Shomo

I have to mention Linda Shomo, Founder & CEO of EasyPay in Albania, the leading money transfer company founded in 2010, the first online and mobile payment provider in the country, winner of numerous awards including the Woman of the Year in ICT 2015 award. Linda plays a very important role in women leadership in the region with initiatives like “Women in Entrepreneurship: Lifting the barriers of Gender Inequality and Financial Inclusion[1]”, “Gender Alliance for Development”[2] and “Empowering Women in Business”[3] and many others.

[1]Women in Entrepreneurship: Lifting the barriers of Gender Inequality and Financial Inclusion –  http://bit.ly/2FPifoG
[2]Entrepreneurs Women in Albania –  http://bit.ly/2FKDRmd
[3]Empowering Women in Business –  http://bit.ly/2IjBeWY