Women-owned businesses in Nigeria are getting less access to formal finance despite recording lower loan default rates and showing a stronger tendency to create jobs, according to Moniepoint.
Lead, Market Research, Moniepoint Inc., Sophia Ukoni, disclosed this at the recently held 2026 Women Entrepreneurs & Executives in Tech Summit (WEETS), where she presented a paper titled, “Empowering Women Through Financial Technology: How Moniepoint is Transforming and Supporting Women-Owned Businesses.”
Ukoni said women-owned businesses account for a significant share of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, but continue to face structural barriers to accessing the finance required to grow and expand.
Presenting data from the Moniepoint 2025 Impact Report and Moniepoint 2025 Informal Economy Report, she said: “Women own one in three businesses in Nigeria,” adding that women account for 33% of the country’s MSMEs and 35% of informal businesses.
According to her, women-owned businesses also demonstrate a significant capacity for job creation. “39% of women-owned informal businesses employ staff, versus 36% of men’s,” Ukoni said, adding: “In short: women own a third of Nigeria’s businesses, and they are more likely than men to create jobs.”
Ukoni also highlighted the dominance of women in several sectors of Nigeria’s informal economy, particularly those linked to everyday consumption.
She said women own 86.8% of informal accommodation and food services businesses, while they account for 55.9% of participants in wholesale and retail trade. “Women lead in food, hospitality and trade, the sectors that keep daily commerce running,” she said.
Despite their economic contribution, Ukoni said women remain significantly disadvantaged in access to financial services.
She cited EFInA data showing that only 45% of Nigerian women have access to financial services, compared with 56% of men. Globally, she said, women-owned MSMEs face an estimated $1.9 trillion unmet financing need.
According to Ukoni, the barriers include “unconscious bias among lenders,” fewer women in financial leadership, limitations on asset ownership and inadequate awareness of funding opportunities. “In short: women have less access to finance, so most fund their businesses from personal savings, and loans from family and friends,” she further stressed.
While noting that the disparity is particularly evident in the size of loans accessed by women-owned businesses, Ukoni said women are only half as likely as men to obtain loans above N1 million, while 41% of women-owned informal businesses earn less than N10,000 in daily profit, compared with 34% of male-owned businesses.
At the other end of the scale, only 10% of women-owned businesses earn more than N50,000 in daily profit, compared with 16% of male-owned businesses. Yet, the data presented by Ukoni showed that women borrowers have a lower loan default rate, with defaults among women reported to be 2.5 times lower than the baseline for men.
Summarising the disparity, she said: “Women hire more and repay more, yet they earn less and borrow less.”
The Moniepoint research also showed that rising operating costs are eroding the ability of small businesses to build savings and reinvest.
Ukoni said 79% of informal businesses reported that their operating costs had risen over the previous year, while 65% recorded revenue growth. “Many are selling more, 65% saw revenue grow, but fewer than half saw profits rise,” she said.
According to her, only 47% of businesses saw their profits increase, while most businesses save less than N50,000 monthly. “The business is working hard, but very little is left over to reinvest,” Ukoni said.
She added that 42% of informal businesses would run out of savings in less than a month if their income stopped, while only 6% had received a loan above N1 million. “The ambition to grow is there, but small savings and hard-to-reach funding keep many businesses from scaling,” she said.
Against the financing constraints, Ukoni said Moniepoint had restructured its lending model to reflect how small businesses actually operate.
She said the fintech uses transaction data generated by businesses on its platform as a basis for assessing their ability to access credit, rather than depending solely on conventional collateral and extensive paperwork. “We gave loans based on real transaction data from businesses already on our platform, not property or heavy paperwork,” she said.
Ukoni explained that the company’s prequalification system matches loans to the needs and repayment capacity of individual businesses. “Prequalification matches each loan to what the business needs and can repay, without overleveraging it,” she said.
She also said Moniepoint’s credit-scoring system uses objective, gender-disaggregated data to reduce the influence of subjective judgement in lending decisions. “We lend based on how a business actually performs, not on what it owns or who owns it,” Ukoni said.
Ukoni said the approach had contributed to increased lending to women-owned businesses. According to the figures presented, Moniepoint provided more than $700 million in loans to MSMEs in 2025, with women-owned businesses accounting for 36% of its loan portfolio.
She said this compared with an industry benchmark of between 15 and 25%. “Three hundred per cent-plus growth in lending to women in 2025,” Ukoni said, while noting that 62% of women surveyed received their first formal business loan from Moniepoint.
She also reiterated that the default rate among women borrowers was 2.5 times lower than that of men.
Ukoni cited individual experiences of women entrepreneurs to illustrate how access to appropriate financial tools can support business expansion. She said Oluremikun, a hospitality business owner in Lagos, used a Moniepoint working-capital loan to expand her services and renovate her property.
Another entrepreneur, Adaeze, who operates a roadside food stall in Onitsha, uses a Moniepoint POS terminal to accept digital payments, serve more customers during peak periods and avoid carrying large amounts of cash.
Ukoni said the benefits of providing women with appropriate financial services extend beyond individual businesses. “With the right credit, women-owned businesses scale and lift their communities,” she said.
According to her, women with access to credit are significantly more likely to operate multiple stores, while women entrepreneurs are active across sectors including agriculture, hospitality, beverage distribution and poultry farming. “Women reinvest in their families and communities, creating jobs along the way,” she said.
Ukoni concluded her presentation by stressing the economic significance of financing women-owned businesses. “Women aren’t a charity case. They are the business case,” she said.
Moniepoint Research Shows Women-Owned Businesses Get Less Funding Despite Lower Loan Defaults
Women-owned businesses in Nigeria are getting less access to formal finance despite recording lower loan default rates and showing a stronger tendency to create jobs, according to Moniepoint.
Lead, Market Research, Moniepoint Inc., Sophia Ukoni, disclosed this at the recently held 2026 Women Entrepreneurs & Executives in Tech Summit (WEETS), where she presented a paper titled, “Empowering Women Through Financial Technology: How Moniepoint is Transforming and Supporting Women-Owned Businesses.”
Ukoni said women-owned businesses account for a significant share of Nigeria’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, but continue to face structural barriers to accessing the finance required to grow and expand.
Presenting data from the Moniepoint 2025 Impact Report and Moniepoint 2025 Informal Economy Report, she said: “Women own one in three businesses in Nigeria,” adding that women account for 33% of the country’s MSMEs and 35% of informal businesses.
According to her, women-owned businesses also demonstrate a significant capacity for job creation. “39% of women-owned informal businesses employ staff, versus 36% of men’s,” Ukoni said, adding: “In short: women own a third of Nigeria’s businesses, and they are more likely than men to create jobs.”
Ukoni also highlighted the dominance of women in several sectors of Nigeria’s informal economy, particularly those linked to everyday consumption.
She said women own 86.8% of informal accommodation and food services businesses, while they account for 55.9% of participants in wholesale and retail trade. “Women lead in food, hospitality and trade, the sectors that keep daily commerce running,” she said.
Despite their economic contribution, Ukoni said women remain significantly disadvantaged in access to financial services.
She cited EFInA data showing that only 45% of Nigerian women have access to financial services, compared with 56% of men. Globally, she said, women-owned MSMEs face an estimated $1.9 trillion unmet financing need.
According to Ukoni, the barriers include “unconscious bias among lenders,” fewer women in financial leadership, limitations on asset ownership and inadequate awareness of funding opportunities. “In short: women have less access to finance, so most fund their businesses from personal savings, and loans from family and friends,” she further stressed.
While noting that the disparity is particularly evident in the size of loans accessed by women-owned businesses, Ukoni said women are only half as likely as men to obtain loans above N1 million, while 41% of women-owned informal businesses earn less than N10,000 in daily profit, compared with 34% of male-owned businesses.
At the other end of the scale, only 10% of women-owned businesses earn more than N50,000 in daily profit, compared with 16% of male-owned businesses. Yet, the data presented by Ukoni showed that women borrowers have a lower loan default rate, with defaults among women reported to be 2.5 times lower than the baseline for men.
Summarising the disparity, she said: “Women hire more and repay more, yet they earn less and borrow less.”
The Moniepoint research also showed that rising operating costs are eroding the ability of small businesses to build savings and reinvest.
Ukoni said 79% of informal businesses reported that their operating costs had risen over the previous year, while 65% recorded revenue growth. “Many are selling more, 65% saw revenue grow, but fewer than half saw profits rise,” she said.
According to her, only 47% of businesses saw their profits increase, while most businesses save less than N50,000 monthly. “The business is working hard, but very little is left over to reinvest,” Ukoni said.
She added that 42% of informal businesses would run out of savings in less than a month if their income stopped, while only 6% had received a loan above N1 million. “The ambition to grow is there, but small savings and hard-to-reach funding keep many businesses from scaling,” she said.
Against the financing constraints, Ukoni said Moniepoint had restructured its lending model to reflect how small businesses actually operate.
She said the fintech uses transaction data generated by businesses on its platform as a basis for assessing their ability to access credit, rather than depending solely on conventional collateral and extensive paperwork. “We gave loans based on real transaction data from businesses already on our platform, not property or heavy paperwork,” she said.
Ukoni explained that the company’s prequalification system matches loans to the needs and repayment capacity of individual businesses. “Prequalification matches each loan to what the business needs and can repay, without overleveraging it,” she said.
She also said Moniepoint’s credit-scoring system uses objective, gender-disaggregated data to reduce the influence of subjective judgement in lending decisions. “We lend based on how a business actually performs, not on what it owns or who owns it,” Ukoni said.
Ukoni said the approach had contributed to increased lending to women-owned businesses. According to the figures presented, Moniepoint provided more than $700 million in loans to MSMEs in 2025, with women-owned businesses accounting for 36% of its loan portfolio.
She said this compared with an industry benchmark of between 15 and 25%. “Three hundred per cent-plus growth in lending to women in 2025,” Ukoni said, while noting that 62% of women surveyed received their first formal business loan from Moniepoint.
She also reiterated that the default rate among women borrowers was 2.5 times lower than that of men.
Ukoni cited individual experiences of women entrepreneurs to illustrate how access to appropriate financial tools can support business expansion. She said Oluremikun, a hospitality business owner in Lagos, used a Moniepoint working-capital loan to expand her services and renovate her property.
Another entrepreneur, Adaeze, who operates a roadside food stall in Onitsha, uses a Moniepoint POS terminal to accept digital payments, serve more customers during peak periods and avoid carrying large amounts of cash.
Ukoni said the benefits of providing women with appropriate financial services extend beyond individual businesses. “With the right credit, women-owned businesses scale and lift their communities,” she said.
According to her, women with access to credit are significantly more likely to operate multiple stores, while women entrepreneurs are active across sectors including agriculture, hospitality, beverage distribution and poultry farming. “Women reinvest in their families and communities, creating jobs along the way,” she said.
Ukoni concluded her presentation by stressing the economic significance of financing women-owned businesses. “Women aren’t a charity case. They are the business case,” she said.
