Women-Owned Businesses Default on Loans 2.5 Times Less Than Men

Women-owned businesses in Nigeria are defaulting on loans at a rate 2.5 times lower than male-owned businesses, according to Moniepoint’s 2025 Impact Report. The fintech company says the pattern holds even as women continue to receive a smaller overall share of disbursed credit. For Nigerian lenders, the data makes a pointed case: lending to female entrepreneurs carries less risk, not more.

Moniepoint reported that women accounted for 36% of loans disbursed through its platform in 2025. That figure already exceeds the industry benchmark of 15% to 25%, yet repayment performance among female borrowers remained stronger than among men. The company stated directly: “We found that the default rate for women was 2.5 times lower than for men. This is definitive evidence that lending to women-owned businesses is sound financial practice.”

First-Time Borrowers Leading The Way

A striking share of these women had never accessed formal credit before. Moniepoint found that 62% of surveyed female entrepreneurs said the loan they received through the platform was their first formal business loan ever. Lending to women on the platform grew by more than 300% in 2025, a pace that far outstripped prior norms in Nigerian MSME financing.

Women-owned businesses make up roughly 33% of Nigeria’s micro, small, and medium enterprises. Yet systemic barriers have historically kept many outside formal lending. Data from Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access cited in the report shows that only 45% of Nigerian women have access to financial services, compared with 56% of men. Those gaps have shaped lending portfolios for years, often to lenders’ own detriment.

Moniepoint credits alternative credit assessment models for part of this shift. These models evaluate entrepreneurs who lack conventional collateral or extensive banking histories. They open the door for women operating in Nigeria’s large informal economy, where traditional credit scores are unavailable. You can read more about systemic barriers limiting women’s credit access and how they play out across markets.

A Second Lender Confirms The Pattern

Moniepoint’s findings are not an isolated result. Credit Direct’s 2025 Nigeria Credit Landscape Report analyzed roughly 300,000 active borrowers and reached similar conclusions. Women received just 26% of all loans in that portfolio, yet posted a delinquency rate of 7.8%, well below the 10.9% recorded for male borrowers.

Women in the Credit Direct data also borrowed more on average, taking N478,117 per loan compared with N430,962 for men. The report concluded: “Despite representing only 26% of total borrowers, women repaid their loans better, indicating that their larger loan amounts do not mean greater credit risk.”

The consistency across two separate lending portfolios points to a durable credit characteristic among Nigerian women borrowers, not a one-lender anomaly. Broader context on female entrepreneurs and loan default rates is available in the original Moniepoint coverage.

What The Numbers Mean For Lending Decisions

The combined evidence from Moniepoint and Credit Direct challenges a long-standing assumption in Nigerian credit markets: that women represent higher-risk borrowers because of weaker collateral and shorter credit histories. The repayment data suggests the opposite is true. Women-led businesses consistently return capital more reliably than their male peers, across different loan sizes and different lenders.

For Nigeria’s fintech and banking sector, that gap in perception versus performance is a direct business opportunity. The financing gaps facing African women entrepreneurs have been well documented, but data-driven lenders willing to use alternative assessment tools can reach a borrower segment that has been structurally underserved and demonstrably creditworthy.

Moniepoint’s 2025 data also showed broader benefits from MSME lending. Businesses that received credit recorded a 36% average increase in transaction value, and 27% of funded merchants expanded their workforce. As more female entrepreneurs enter the formal credit system for the first time, those gains may compound further. Whether lenders adjust their allocation models to match what repayment records now clearly show is the next real test.