The financial institutions are committed to engage in social responsibility related work as well, or to reach out to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, of which women occupy an important place. Despite the advancement of the financial sector and the resilience of the system as a whole, we are still unable to appreciate or criticize its commitment towards financial inclusion of and access to finance by women, due to lack of disaggregated data from banks and financial institutions. This, I believe, is the biggest drawback in initiating policy responses to remedy the deficiencies in financial inclusion of women. The absence of balanced regional or provincial growth is another important drawback in enhancing financial inclusion of women. GDP growth has been uneven throughout the post independent period. Growth in the Western Province has been around 50%, while all other provinces accounted for the balance. This uneven growth has resulted in a skewed income distribution, varying degree of poverty, marginalization and unemployment issues, as well as financial exclusion in the other regions of the country. However, the significant growth in the Western Province has resulted in notable enhancement in access to finance and financial inclusion. 2  BIS Review 40/2008  Table 1 Banking Density as at 31.12.2007 (Provisional)  District  No.
Ranee Jayamaha: Access to finance and financial inclusion for women Speech by Dr Ranee Jayamaha, Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, at the Centre for Women's Research (CENWOR), Colombo, 4 April 2008. *  *  *  Let me start by giving a general definition for access to finance and financial inclusion before assessing the status of women in these two areas, and then discuss the areas of focus in enhancing financial inclusion for women. What is access to finance? In simple terms, this means to provide an environment in which people, in general, have accesses to the formal financial system, through the use of different financial products at affordable prices. The access could be to any formal financial institution, market, and payment system or to a financial instrument, including savings, loans, remittances and insurance services. What is financial inclusion? This means the process of facilitating those sectors and segments of the population that are outside, to become a part of the formal financial system and enrolling individuals or groups into the formal financial sector.