How do loan officer-borrower gender-driven behavioural differences impact on the microfinance lending market?

Abstract

This paper analyses the impact of the gender of the loan officer-borrower pair on the loan-size, credit availability and time spent in managing the credit application. By using 3,020 lending transactions from Ecuador during 2016–2019, we document that the loan officer-borrower pair gender drives differences in the microcredit portfolio management. We find that female loan officers grant smaller microcredits to both male and female borrowers. However, the loan-size increases when matching the loan officer-borrower gender. We also demonstrate that female loan officers have greater loan approval rates, mainly in the segment of higher loan-sizes granted to male clients. Finally, our results show that the microcredits that have the fastest evaluation process are those that have a lower loan-size and are granted by female loan officers to female borrowers. Our findings have practical implications for the analysis of the credit availability for entrepreneurs as well as the loan portfolio management.

Keywords

• Microcredit
• Loan officer
• Gender bias