Women-owned businesses received only 7.5 per cent of total loans disbursed in the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprise (CMSME) sector during the October-December quarter of 2025, highlighting the persistent gap in access to bank financing for female entrepreneurs.

Although women-owned businesses accounted for 37.6 per cent of the enterprises receiving CMSME loans during the period, their share in the total loan amount remained significantly low.

The findings were revealed in the Bangladesh Bank’s Financial Inclusion Report Bangladesh, 2025.

According to the report, banks and financial institutions disbursed a total of Tk 70,171 crore in CMSME loans during the quarter. Of this amount, women-owned enterprises received Tk 5,284 crore.

A total of 161,213 women-owned enterprises received loans during the period, compared with 267,424 male-owned businesses.

Among the loans received by women entrepreneurs, 41.5 per cent went to the manufacturing sector, 30.7 per cent to trade and 27.8 per cent to the services sector.

The report also showed that the number of women’s deposit accounts in banks reached 64.1 million at the end of December 2025, marking an increase of 9.1 million from the previous year.

However, women’s share of total bank loan accounts declined from 20 per cent to 18.6 per cent. The number of loan accounts held by women stood at 2.51 million during the period.

Women’s participation in formal financial services also remained lower than that of men. In 2025, around 60.9 per cent of adult women had access to formal financial services, compared with 69.5 per cent of adult men.

In contrast, women accounted for 91 per cent of borrowers from microfinance institutions, indicating their strong participation in the microcredit sector.

The report further stated that women held 105.67 million mobile financial service (MFS) accounts in 2025.