Women are making significant strides in asset ownership with more purchasing homes and vehicles, recent data from Standard Bank shows.
Insights from the bank’s credit score feature suggest this growth is underpinned by stronger credit profiles among women.
“About 70% of female homebuyers purchase properties valued under R1.5m, and in 2025, the average property price for female main applicants was R1.3m, lower than the R1.7m average among other home loan clients. In vehicle finance, women’s average spend has historically been lower and was 6.5% less than men’s in 2025,” said Standard Bank.
Despite progress in asset ownership women continue to face financial disadvantages over their working lives. A recent Discovery "Corporate and Employee Benefits" insights report highlighted that women have 21% less in pension and provident fund balances and earn only 76 cents for every R1 men earn, reflecting a persistent 24% pay gap.
FinMark Trust’s 2024 survey found that 75% of adults who borrowed money did so to cover essentials such as food with 43% relying on credit just to put meals on the table.
Solution owner of digital money manager at Standard Bank Shené Mothilal says more women than men are installing and using the bank’s credit score feature.
“Our credit score feature continues to see strong growth in both installations and usage frequency, but more so among men. The surprising twist is that, despite lower adoption, women outperform men on credit scores,” she said.
Standard Bank said women often maintain higher credit scores because they take on less credit than men despite increasing asset ownership.
This trend is mirrored in unsecured credit where women’s average outstanding balances are 8.45% lower than those of male clients.
Fewer women actively track their credit scores as only 42% of users who’ve installed Standard Bank’s credit score feature are women despite a higher overall proportion of female app users, the bank said.
“This means women are checking their creditworthiness less often than men potentially missing out on insights that could further strengthen their financial position.”
The bank's data also revealed that across both genders credit scores improve with age as younger customers in their 20s typically have the lowest scores due to limited credit history and financial knowledge.
“With age, we see growing financial knowledge and better credit management over time. Customers with higher income generally do have better credit scores,” said Mothilal.
Customers earning between R10,000 and R20,000 a month tend to have the lowest average scores which is likely due to heavier reliance on credit for daily necessities.
“This could signal that higher earners rely less on credit for daily expenses and use it more strategically to build wealth,” said Mothilal.
Standard Bank has encouraged women to leverage their strong credit profiles as the bank's credit score feature offers personalised tips and progress tracking without affecting scores which they say will help customers improve creditworthiness and access finance for major assets.
“Women already have stronger credit profiles — now it’s time to leverage that edge.”
TimesLIVE
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