Laiser: At Absa, empowering women isn’t charity, it is smart economics

Dar es Salaam. When Mr Obedi Laiser speaks about women and economic empowerment, he does not frame it as a diversity obligation or a reputational exercise. He frames it as arithmetic.

At a recent high-level dialogue following the partnership between Absa Bank Tanzania and Mwananchi Communications Limited for the sixth edition of The Citizen Rising Woman Initiative (RWI 2026), the bank’s chief executive officer and managing director was unequivocal: empowering women is not charity. It is smart economics.

Mr Laiser’s conviction is rooted in personal history as much as institutional strategy. He says he witnessed early on what he now describes as “CEO-level capability” within the household he grew up in.

From budget management and crisis resolution to resource allocation, the mechanics of leadership were present long before he learned the language of capital markets.

What changed, he reflected, was not women’s capability but their access.

“The strength was always there,” he said. “Opportunity lacked.”

That distinction between capability and access anchors Absa’s current positioning.

In Mr Laiser’s telling, women have always been central to Tanzania’s economy, but their participation has been structurally constrained by limited access to capital, networks, markets and formal systems.

The result is an underutilised asset base in a country seeking accelerated growth.

From a banking perspective, that underutilisation translates into inefficiency. Mr Laiser reduces the argument to fundamentals. Women account for nearly half of the population. If half of a country’s talent pool is structurally constrained, then full economic potential is mathematically unattainable. It is not a moral abstraction; it is a productivity loss.

“Women empowerment is not optional for growth,” he said. “It is a requirement for growth.”

At Absa, that philosophy has moved beyond rhetoric into product design and capital allocation. The bank’s decision to partner with the Rising Woman platform this year, he explained, reflects a shift from symbolic support to measurable outcomes.

The theme Give to Gain aligns with Absa’s internal belief that investing in women generates institutional and national returns. In practice, this has meant embedding gender responsiveness into lending, hiring and promotion processes. Mr Laiser was keen to emphasise that inclusion is not a parallel initiative within the bank; it is integrated into its operating model.

The most visible example is the She Business Account, a dedicated product aimed at addressing barriers that frequently keep women outside the formal banking system.

Recognising that cost perceptions and account maintenance fees can discourage uptake, Absa structured the product to minimise charges and encourage transactional history building. The strategic objective is straightforward: formalisation.

Informality, Mr Laiser argued, remains one of the most significant impediments to women accessing finance. Many female-led businesses operate for years without registration, tax compliance or structured record-keeping. When they approach formal banks, the absence of documentation becomes a barrier.

Collateral is the second structural constraint. Property-based security remains dominant in lending practices, yet historical and societal norms have left many women without title deeds or registered assets in their names. The result is an access gap that is less about risk and more about ownership patterns.

To mitigate this, Absa has expanded partnerships with microfinance institutions that specialise in group lending and small-scale financing.

Under this model, Absa provides capital to microfinance partners at affordable rates, and those institutions with deeper experience in grassroots credit assessment on-lend to women entrepreneurs. It is a layered approach designed to circumvent collateral limitations while preserving credit discipline. The strategy acknowledges market realities.

Large commercial banks do not always have the operational bandwidth to serve micro-scale clients directly. Partnerships allow capital to flow while leveraging specialised expertise. Mr Laiser also pushed back against the persistent narrative that women are riskier borrowers.

At Absa, he said, risk assessment is individual, not gendered. Yet data tells its own story: women-led businesses often demonstrate strong repayment performance. Women, he noted, tend to plan carefully and prioritise loan servicing.

In this respect, the empirical evidence reinforces the economic argument. If women are responsible borrowers and resilient entrepreneurs, then excluding them from credit pipelines is not only inequitable but commercially shortsighted.

The conversation extended beyond lending into leadership architecture. Mr Laiser argued that power, when inclusive, becomes more balanced, ethical and sustainable.

Diverse leadership produces better decisions, and better decisions improve outcomes — an assertion supported by global governance research.

Mentorship is another lever the bank is deploying to institutionalise inclusion.

Mr Laiser sponsors an internal programme known as “Elevator,” mentoring a cohort of mid-level female managers on executive confidence, boardroom engagement and strategic visibility.

Parallel initiatives connect senior female directors with emerging leaders, creating structured knowledge transfer across management tiers.

For Mr Laiser, mentorship operates on two planes: active and passive. While structured sessions matter, he credits much of his own development to consciously observing leaders he admired, internalising how they handled conflict, crises and complex decisions. The emphasis is on behavioural modelling as much as formal coaching.

This focus on visibility, both internal and external, was a recurring theme in his remarks. In business, he argued, visibility builds trust and credibility. For women aspiring to leadership, visibility is not self-promotion but strategic positioning.

As careers progress, technical competence alone is insufficient; judgement, articulation and cross-functional engagement become decisive.

The same principle applies to businesses. Strategic visibility through media, digital platforms and stakeholder engagement strengthens relationships with customers, suppliers and financiers. However, visibility also introduces accountability.

Once a business declares its narrative publicly, it must consistently deliver on it.

On a macro scale, Mr Laiser warned that halting intentional empowerment would carry measurable costs. Financial inclusion momentum would slow. Household income stability — often anchored by women’s economic participation — would weaken. Leadership diversity would narrow, reducing institutional resilience. Competitively, Tanzania would risk falling behind countries that have embraced inclusive growth models.

He referenced Scandinavian economies such as Finland, Norway and Denmark as examples where balanced representation correlates with strong institutional performance.

The implication is clear: inclusion is not an ideological experiment; it is a competitiveness strategy.

At the organisational level, the stakes are equally high. Banks that retreat from inclusion risk eroding credibility in an era where investors and regulators increasingly prioritise sustainable and inclusive growth frameworks.

For Absa, “giving to gain” translates into continued investment in leadership development, targeted financial products and capacity-building partnerships. Beyond product innovation, the bank has convened training sessions with tax authorities, audit firms and regulatory bodies to equip women entrepreneurs with compliance knowledge and financial literacy.

The objective is to strengthen enterprise durability, not merely disburse loans.

Mr Laiser summarised the philosophy succinctly: empowering women is both social justice and economic strategy. But in his framing, the economic case stands independently. A nation that underutilises half its talent base cannot expect optimal growth.

A bank that ignores a resilient borrower segment forfeits opportunity.

“We are not choosing a segment,” he said. “We are choosing Tanzania’s future.” In a competitive global environment, where capital flows to efficiency and productivity, Absa’s stance reflects a recalibration of traditional banking logic. Inclusion is no longer peripheral. It is central to long-term balance sheet strength and national economic momentum.

If that thesis holds, then women’s empowerment ceases to be a seasonal campaign. It becomes a structural investment, one that, in Absa’s view, compounds over time.