Visa Launches White Paper On Women-Led SMBs

Visa  has announced the launch of a new white paper titled Privacy and Security for Women-Led SMBs in Digital Financial Services. The paper explores how women entrepreneurs understand and respond to privacy and security risks, and how these perceptions affect trust, adoption, and continued use of digital financial services.

The white paper was developed under the Digital Finance for All (DFA) initiative, a Visa-funded partnership with the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation. It focuses on women-led small and micro businesses (SMBs), offering practical considerations for digital financial service providers and ecosystem stakeholders seeking to strengthen trust, improve user control, and support safer access to digital finance.

Drawing on primary research conducted in Kenya, one of the world’s most active digital financial services markets, the paper also incorporates consumer insights from Visa’s Consumer Empowerment studies in Kenya and across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA).

A central finding of the white paper is that privacy and security are not just technical considerations. They are key drivers of trust that influence whether women-led SMBs move beyond basic digital services, such as person-to-person transfers, into savings, credit, and other business-enabling financial tools.

Key Insights from the Research

• Perceptions influence adoption: Only 11 per cent of consumers fully understand how their data is used, while 85 per cent report concerns about unauthorised access. This uncertainty creates caution and can limit deeper use of digital financial services.
• Transparency builds loyalty: More than 79 per cent of consumers say clear communication about data use plays a decisive role in whether they continue sharing digital data.
• The gap between expectations and perceptions limits value: Many women-led SMBs expect digital financial services to be safe, transparent, and user-friendly. However, when products are perceived as risky or unclear, users may restrict their engagement, reducing the business value these services can deliver.
• Privacy and security require an ecosystem-wide response: The report highlights the shared responsibility of providers, fintechs, banks, regulators, and consumer organisations in strengthening protections, communication, and recourse mechanisms.

“Trust is foundational to the digital economy. Through the Digital Finance for All partnership with GSMA, we are supporting evidence based, practical guidance that helps providers build transparent, user centered experiences,” said Michael Berner, Senior Vice-President Southern & Eastern Africa, Visa. ” This white paper offers a clear action framework to improve privacy, security, and recourse so more women led SMBs can engage confidently with digital finance.”

The white paper further outlines clear considerations for digital financial service providers seeking to close the trust gap. These include embedding privacy into product design from the start, simplifying data practices and communication, expanding user controls, enabling discreet access and transactional privacy, strengthening gender-sensitive recourse, building partnerships to scale inclusive solutions, and developing metrics to track progress.

The white paper, Privacy and Security for Women-Led SMBs in Digital Financial Services, is available through GSMA’s Mobile Money and Mobile for Development channels.