Within Reach: How Digital Wages That Work for Women Can Support Bangladesh’s Economic Future

Wage digitization of low-income populations has the potential to be a win-win opportunity that can deliver both social and economic progress. For workers, especially women, it can mean the chance to open a financial account, and greater economic empowerment. For global buyers it can mean efficiency savings and increased transparency in global supply chains and for financial service providers a new active market segment).

This report shares HERproject’s experience of supporting 70 garment factories in Bangladesh, with a combined workforce of around 170,000 (majority women) to digitize their wages and raises the question "what if all 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh were paid into accounts?". The report includes recommendations for action across three interrelated areas to reach this goal: increasing inclusive access to financial services, building the labor force’s digital financial capability especially women, and increasing opportunities for digital payments in the financial ecosystem.