INFORMATION NOTICE

Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Regulation and Development of Financial Market will continue its efforts to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic, with particular attention           to gender aspect. – M. Abylkassymova

This was announced by the Agency’s Chairperson at the webinar on “Gender and Crisis Recovery: Building Back Better’, hosted by European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Women20.

The webinar was attended by EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti, Women20 Chair Dr. Thoraya Obeid, EBRD Managing Director of Economic Policy and Governance Dr. Mattia Romani, Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation Ms. Rania Al-Mashat, Albania's Minister of Finance and Economy Ms. Anila Denaj, Chairperson of the Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan for Regulation and Development of Financial Market Ms. Madina Abylkassymova. In total, the webinar brought together over 200 listeners from around the world.  

According to M. Abylkassymova, the presence of gender aspect in the EBRD's agenda is very important for financial markets of all countries, as it gives an impetus to financial regulators to develop the issue of women's empowerment in economic development, especially during recovery from the crisis caused by the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has made changes to the lifestyles of men and women. Referring to the world statistics, webinar participants noted that women were affected by the pandemic more than men. They mentioned the following reasons for that: female-dominated activities (wholesale and retail trade, agriculture, real estate transactions, services) were the most affected by the crisis; during quarantine, many women with children of school and preschool age are deprived of the opportunity to combine work and home, due to the closure of schools and kindergartens, and therefore this category of women loses their income.

In this regard, M. Abylkassymova emphasized the need to develop systemic measures aimed at ensuring financial independence of women and expanding their access to financial services, which is especially important in times of crisis and recovery.

1. The collection of gender statistics will be expanded as a basic tool for identifying and understanding problematic aspects of gender relations in the provision of financial services. This statistics will show the real situation regarding the availability and use of financial services, which will allow developing the new gender-sensitive financial products, improving service quality, risk management and pricing structure to meet women's financial needs and preferences.
2. Following the EBRD recommendation, the establishment of the special bureaus for women entrepreneurs in financial institutions will be considered. M. Abylkassymova noted the significant role of the EBRD's program in the development of women's entrepreneurship, under which a number of Kazakhstan’s banks are already providing loans on favorable terms. Moreover, the EBRD provides training for female entrepreneurs, renders consulting services and conducts research on the involvement of women in business.

The financial regulator’s head underlined that Kazakhstan, like many others, has taken a number of measures to restore lending to the economy, prevent a reduction in access to credit resources for business, provide additional tools to support SMEs, mitigate the impact of the situation in the real economy on stability of the banking system. “We will continue our work to reduce the negative consequences of the pandemic, with particular attention to gender aspect. This includes studying the real situation with regard to women's access to and use of financial services, conducting targeted work with female borrowers to restructure and refinance loans, and developing additional financial products and services for female entrepreneurs,” – concluded М. Abylkassymova.    

Full recording of the event is available by clicking on the following link: https://ebrd.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/ebrd/recording/play/1f1c13bffa9747b29f3b81397af4e4bb

For more information, please call +7 (727) 2788 121

   www.finreg.kz, fingramota@finreg.kz