Digital wages can unlock women’s economic power in Bangladesh

Originally published in The Daily Star. Click here to read the original Op-Ed

BY Stefan Liller is Resident Representative at UNDP Bangladesh.

L. Nshuti Mbazi is managing director at United Nations' Better Than Cash Alliance.

Bangladesh's garment factories once marked payday with long queues and thick bundles of cash. Today, in many of those same factories, wages land in workers' mobile wallets with a single tap. This quiet shift from cash to digital wages is doing more than speeding up payroll. It is opening accounts, building credit histories, and giving millions of women greater control over their earnings. Among Bangladeshis who have a bank account, 78 percent used digital payments in 2024, evidence that usage follows access.

The country's economic rise is undeniable. Its GDP increased from just over $100 billion in 2009 to more than $450 billion in 2024. Yet, prosperity has not kept pace with everyone. Less than 40 percent of Bangladeshi women participate in the labour force, and most who do are in informal and insecure employment. Over half of the world's unbanked adults-which is 53 percent or more than 650 million-live in just eight economies, including Bangladesh.

Nationally, according to the 2025 World Bank Global Findex, 34 percent of adults made or received a digital payment in 2024, while 11 percent saved and 13 percent borrowed formally. Basic connectivity exists as 82 percent own a mobile phone, but only 44 percent use the internet. Closing the gender gap in financial inclusion could add an estimated 14 percent, or around $50 billion, to the national output. Much of today's growth is driven by the RMG sector, which exports apparel worth close to $40 billion and employs more than 40 lakh people. Yet, many of these workers still receive wages in cash, leaving them outside formal finance.

These women, often unseen and unheard, are the invisible engine powering Bangladesh's exports. Every day, they craft the garments that hang in shop windows from Stockholm to Sydney. Most are young. Studies suggest that the majority are 29 years old or younger, yet for decades, their labour was paid in the least empowering way possible: in cash, handed out under fluorescent lights, overseen by male supervisors, and later often handed over to their husbands or other male family members.

A 2019 public-private pledge-to digitise 90 percent of garment wages and the rapid push that followed during Covid-proved what is possible. At the pandemic's peak, 82 percent of factory wages were paid digitally, phone ownership among female workers in supported factories jumped to over 90 percent, and savings account use more than doubled. When incentives ended, some factories reverted to cash, but the lesson was clear: with the right ecosystem, paying wages electronically works.

However, progress in Bangladesh and in South Asia remains uneven. Among account owners, women's adoption of digital payments lags behind men's across the region by 15 percentage points. A recent review of garment payrolls in Bangladesh and the National Digital Payments Roadmap shows that uptake is high for receiving wages but low for saving, spending, or borrowing. Nearly half of the workers resist cash-out fees, and cost-sharing rules remain unclear.

Weak onboarding and patchy merchant acceptance push many users back to cash. Discomfort at agent points affects one in three women, while women-led micro and small enterprises still face disproportionately high loan rejection rates. Closing these gaps through clearer fee policies, consumer-first design, stronger merchant networks, and targeted digital literacy are critical areas for support.

Bangladesh's next transformation lies in the informal economy. Beyond the loom and needle, 78 lakh small and medium enterprises-employing 2.1 crore people-offer enormous potential. Yet, a large share of them remains unregistered, unbanked, and offline. Women lead many of these ventures, balancing budgets and managing micro-shops, but often remain invisible to formal finance.

Building an inclusive digital economy already aligns with Bangladesh's broader development priorities: stronger financial ecosystems, greater resilience, and increased opportunities for women and young entrepreneurs. Digital wages are only the first step. Pairing them with skills training, safe savings products, and access to markets turns digital payments into a pathway out of poverty.

Several small-scale programmes in climate-affected districts show what is possible. When low-income women received short-term jobs paired with savings groups and mobile wallets, household incomes nearly tripled, and mobile payment use reached almost universal levels. Scaling such community initiatives, backed by evidence, can turn today's isolated successes into national progress and keep Bangladesh on course to meet its 2030 ambitions.

By 2030, digital finance could be near-universal in Bangladesh, but only if every common payment flow runs on responsible, interoperable rails. The task now is to move from access to active use, especially for women workers and women-led businesses, by fixing frictions in the last mile and making digital the path forward.

It is time to scale what is working. Tracking progress on the three core World Bank Global Findex indicators-account ownership (43 percent), digital payment use (34 percent), and the women's account gap (20 percentage points)-would make inclusion targets concrete and comparable. Implementing the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (2022-2026) and monitoring progress across sectors will be key.