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Increased exposure to frauds & scams
Deceptive practices targeting customers through mobile banking, mobile money, and fintech apps are on the rise and women are often less equipped to detect and recover from fraud, especially as they already face barriers such as lower digital literacy, limited mobility, or shared phone use. When scams occur, the consequences extend beyond financial loss and often create deep mistrust that discourages women from further engaging with formal financial services altogether.
10 Connected Barriers
Most Relevant Segments
- 01. Excluded, marginalized
- 02. Excluded, high potential
- 03. Included, underserved
- 04. Included, not underserved
Most Relevant Customer Journey Phases
- Phase 1: Account Ownership
- Phase 2: Basic Account Usage
- Phase 3: Active Account Usage
- Phase 4: Economic Empowerment
Key Evidence
Global trends suggest an uptick in fraud complaints.
Especially against the landscape of rising digitization and expansion of financial services, increases in fraud are widespread. These include phishing scams, opaque costs, and network issues, and are compounded by insufficient or dissatisfactory recourse mechanisms. This results in lack of trust in financial institutions and systems and suspicion of digital devices, transactions, and services.
- Qualitative interviews with FSPs reveal that fraud and scams are one of the most significant barriers facing women customers, contributing to a lack of trust in financial products and services. (Women's World Banking, 2025)
- Rapid digitization has led to increased consumer risks, including fraud, data misuse, and inadequate recourse mechanisms. Specific examples of fraud include SIM swap fraud and mobile app fraud. (CGAP, 2024)
- According to the KPMG Global Banking Scam Survey 2025, 60% of survey respondents reported increased scam-related complaints. Most common complaints included dissatisfaction with reimbursement decisions, frustration with transaction friction, and feeling banks could do more to protect consumers. (KPMG, 2025)
To strengthen trust and combat fraud, some providers and financial institutions have invested in education campaigns, AI detection schemes, and recovery options.
Successful efforts adopt a proactive, multi-layered approach to fraud prevention and consumer protection, including real-time detection and response capabilities, as well as customer awareness-building and digital safety education, including community-based ambassador programs and the integration of scam prevention into onboarding and ongoing engagement.
- Some banks have implemented various initiatives to educate customers about scams, including social media campaigns, scam alerts via emails or SMS, educational webinars, and interactive tools on websites or mobile apps. (KPMG, 2025)
- A 2025 survey of financial services providers finds that 45% of institutions are proactively implementing mitigation strategies against fraud and scams, including AI-based fraud detection systems and customer education efforts. (Women's World Banking, 2025)
- In Indonesia, a fintech company has implemented fraud prevention strategies, including internal audits and whistleblower systems, to combat agent-related fraud and build trust among rural women clients. (Women’s World Banking, 2026)
Interventions that have successfully addressed this barrier
The following Exemplar represents one evidence-based interventions that has shown success in addressing this particular barrier. There may be other Exemplars for this barrier in the larger Barriers & Exemplars Analysis compendium deck.
Nigeria’s NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) design, centered on interoperability, standardized account identification, and broad accessibility, has enabled rapid adoption, increased trust and confidence in the digital financial system, and improved affordability to become a leader in inclusive, sustainable, and scalable payment systems.
2 Connected Exemplars
