Jennifer Riria, banking chief: Financial system still excludes women

Summary

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The Interview: Jennifer Riria, Banking Chief – Financial System Still Excludes Women

Podcast: The Interview (BBC World Service)
Host: Lianna Byrne
Guest: Dr. Jennifer Riria
Air Date: May 21, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features a compelling conversation between BBC journalist Lianna Byrne and Dr. Jennifer Riria, a pioneering Kenyan business leader in microfinance and women’s development. Dr. Riria, who rose from a humble rural background to head one of Africa’s leading microfinance institutions, discusses the persistent financial exclusion of women in Africa. She shares personal stories of overcoming adversity, explains how microfinance can empower women, and offers candid insights into the challenges still facing women's financial inclusion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Dr. Riria’s Early Life and Motivation

• Rural Upbringing and Family Struggles:

  • Dr. Riria grew up in a poor Kenyan village, performing chores and witnessing her mother—and other women—suffer under patriarchal expectations.
    • "All I knew when I was very little … is that I wanted to get away from the village. I hated to see my mother suffer.” (04:03)
  • Her understanding of her mother’s struggles broadened to encompass all village women, shaping her life mission.

• Teen Pregnancy and Persistence in Education:

  • Became a mother at the end of high school, which deeply upset her Presbyterian family and forced her to leave home.
  • Persisted with her studies, taking her baby to both university (Dar es Salaam) and later the UK for her master’s.
    • “Wherever I went I found very kind people who even fed us when we didn't have any food with my child until I finished my university.” (06:48)
  • Confronted moments of despair—considered giving up her life—yet was stopped by her baby’s voice:
    • “I stood by the edge of the swimming pool and I wanted to jump in but at that time the baby on my back … said mom and I realized I can't do this.” (07:33)

Professional Journey and Founding Microfinance for Women

• Academic and UNICEF Career:

  • Taught at university for a decade; consulted for UNICEF on women’s education and child survival.
  • Noticed the vital link between women’s education and child wellbeing, leading her into the world of small business support for women.

• Reviving and Expanding Kenya Women Microfinance Institution:

  • Joined after a pioneering but dwindling women’s credit group, turning it from a social club into a robust institution.
    • “Women were totally excluded from financial services … we bring women together in groups … we went to the women, we went to the villages.” (09:40)
  • Introduced compulsory savings, rigorous group training, and incremental loan schemes.
  • Emphasized working at the grassroots—travelling to villages, organizing annual gatherings, and using word-of-mouth to build trust.

• Scaling and Success:

  • Personally handled all roles in the nascent days: “To begin with, in 1991, I was the MD, I was the cleaner, I was the accountant. I was everything.” (16:47)
  • Achieved 100% loan repayment rates in early years by opening new offices only after existing clients had fully repaid.
  • When she left, the institution had over a million female clients across 45 counties and operated as a microfinance bank.

Notable Firsts and Critical Lessons

• First Lending Experiences:

  • Humorous note: Her first loan to a friend was never repaid; the second partial. Only after hiring trained staff did repayment rates skyrocket.
  • “They looked at me as their friend. They never saw me as a lender. But when the young people came in aggressively, they already trained what to do, what to say. That made a big difference.” (17:39)

• Expansion Beyond Finance:

  • Shifted focus to broader women’s development: leadership, stopping female genital mutilation (FGM), promoting girls’ education, advocating for women in peace and politics.
  • Formed the Democracy Trust Fund for women’s political participation.

Persistent Barriers to Financial Inclusion

• Financial Exclusion in the Digital Age:

  • Nearly half of women in Sub-Saharan Africa remain unbanked—much higher than men—largely due to infrastructure and socio-economic constraints.
    • “Financial services … are still eluding women right now. Digital banking… will be where the ICT infrastructure is. [In] some parts … the infrastructure is so poor. So even fintech will not reach women.” (21:36)
  • Gendered poverty and low access to technology limit women’s ability to benefit from financial advances:
    • "A woman has to think, do I want a phone or do I want to save that money to feed my children?” (22:27)
  • Availability of cheap, user-friendly devices and digital literacy lag behind demand.

• Technology Risks Widening Gaps:

  • As banking goes digital, rural women risk greater exclusion without targeted interventions.

Microfinance: Critiques and Safeguards

• Risks of Debt Traps:
  • Addressed critiques that microfinance can create cycles of debt for women.
  • Stressed the importance of continual training and close client relationships to prevent over-borrowing:
    • “If a woman is alone, she doesn't get another [loan]. There is need for any institution to keep close … giving them information so they understand the danger of over borrowing. It is the overborrowing that kills clients.” (24:31)
  • Recognizes increased economic pressure on women—loans can shift household burdens disproportionately onto them.
  • Still, maintains that not providing access would be a “greater evil.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Early Motivation:
  • “It is the village woman, it is the village poor girl that needs to get away, that needs to have a different type of life.” — Dr. Jennifer Riria (04:58)
• On Persistence Through Hardship:
  • “I needed to do my education because I wouldn't have managed to do anything else without education.” — Dr. Jennifer Riria (07:19)
• On Bringing Microfinance to Rural Women:
  • “We went to the women, we went to the villages, we went to the markets … we began training them, training them with little money, little money as $30 for them to do something small like bake chapati or madazi and sell and resell and save.” — Dr. Jennifer Riria (10:55)
• On Gendered Access to Technology:
  • “You can have a router passing through your gate. But a woman has to think, do I want a phone or do I want to save that money to feed my children?” — Dr. Jennifer Riria (22:23)
• On Microfinance and Women's Burden:
  • “Once we began providing them with loans … the imbalance, the gender workload, which also is financial load increased for women as we continued to give them access … But what is the worst evil not to give them and run things on?” — Dr. Jennifer Riria (26:17)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro to Dr. Riria and her background: 03:27–05:29
• Teen mother & education struggles: 05:29–07:19
• Turning point and mental health: 07:19–07:54
• Professional first steps (UNICEF & university): 07:54–09:31
• History & build-out of microfinance movement in Kenya: 09:40–14:10
• First borrowers and building trust: 16:47–19:27
• Growing the institution to national scale: 19:27–21:16
• Why women remain excluded from finance: 21:16–23:22
• Tech and deepening exclusion: 23:22–24:17
• Addressing microfinance critiques: 24:17–27:07

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is candid, sober, and warm, revealing Dr. Riria’s humility, dedication, and inner strength. She avoids grandiosity, focusing instead on collective struggle and incremental change. The episode offers both hope and realism: while microfinance can be transformative, deep gendered obstacles—access, technology, societal norms—remain. Dr. Riria champions continuous training, adaptation, and the central role of women supporting women.

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Transcript

[LinkedIn Advertiser]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those $5 roses at a gas station or a second hand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes? Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com broadcast that's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day. But what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington Wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washing host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's Managing Director for Legislative and Regulatory affairs, takes a non partisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the Federal Reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] washingtonwise or wherever you listen.

[Lianna Byrne]

Hello, I'm BBC journalist Lianna Byrne and this is the interview from the BBC World. The best conversations coming out of the BBC people shaping our world from all over the world.

[LinkedIn Advertiser]

If you're not a little bit afraid then you're not paying attention.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

We have never seen seen a people so united.

[Lianna Byrne]

Do not make that boat crossing.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

Do not make that journey.

[Lianna Byrne]

Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

We're more popular than populism.

[Lianna Byrne]

For this interview I spoke to the African business leader Dr. Jennifer Ririra over Zoom while she was in Nairobi. Having started life in a poor rural village in Kenya, Dr. Rira worked her way up to develop and run one of the biggest microfinance institutions for women in Africa. Microfinance is a banking service providing small loans and more to people with low income who might lack access to traditional banking. It's aimed at fostering self sufficiency, financial education and entrepreneurship in developing areas. Her focus, however, is not limited to finance alone. She's also utilized experience from a career which has included teaching at university and consulting for unicef, the UN children's aid agency, in order to progress women's development in education and leadership.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

My vision drove me to desire to be able to serve women in a different way, to deal with women and leadership with girls excelling in education, not getting married so early to stop FGM genital mutilation. And then we needed to think of women and peace because we felt that that's one of the areas we need to deal with, which is not.

[Lianna Byrne]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Dr. Jennifer Ririra.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

I grew up in a village like any other African little girl in the village, fetching water and firewood, putting in the kettle and the sheep in the evening, taking care of the baby, looking up, you know, in support of mother and going to school in the village. It was not an easy childhood living in a village that was actually poor. All I knew when I was very little, that meaning, you know, five, six, seven, even up to 10 years, is that I wanted to get away from the village. I hated to see my mother suffer. It's only letter in high school and actually actualized at the university that I knew it was not my mother only, it was about that girl in the village. It was about that woman in the village receiving beatings when, you know, food is not ready on time. I knew it was not my mother only at that time it was other women. And that is what shaped what I am today, that I needed to get away. To begin with, I thought, it's my mom. I wanted to get away from all that suffering. But I realized it is the village woman, it is the village poor girl that needs to get away, that needs to have a different type of life.

[Lianna Byrne]

Now a major turning point for you was at the end of high school when you became a young mother. Can you tell me about that time?

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

That was not planned, you know, that was not planned. It was just the stupidity of a teen enjoying a teenage and thinking that's how things should be. You have a boyfriend, you are not happy with it, and then you get a baby. And then that was more difficult than I remember because my parents were stunned, Presbyterians, Christians and therefore my having a baby as a teenager and no place in my family, my father was very bitter about it. My mother never said a word. But my father said, you need to get away and I got away, I went away. I went to my sister, my sister upheld me until I went to school and I took my baby with me to the university, Dar es Salaam University and got support from friends in Tanzania and got friends from my late sister. One of my late sisters was an anchor for me until I completed bio university and I took my baby with me to UK for my masters. It was also very, very difficult to be in a foreign country with a baby with meager resources. Wherever I went I found very kind people who even fed us when we didn't have any food with my child until I finished my university.

[Lianna Byrne]

It's really amazing that you kept up your education while rearing a child. It's not easy. Is there any point that you thought to yourself I don't want to do this anymore, I want the easy way out, I can't do this.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

I needed to do my education because I wouldn't have managed to do anything else without education. So I was bent on completing my education. I went to Daslam. It was very difficult, a very young baby. I have lectures to go to, have homework to do and one time I put, put my baby on my back and I intended to jump into the swimming pool and I stood by the edge of the swimming pool and I wanted to jump in but at that time the baby on my back, tied on my back said mom and I realized I can't do this.

[Lianna Byrne]

Tell me about your early professional life because you didn't start in banking.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

Now I've completed my university first degree. When I came back those days getting jobs was not difficult because government office issues came to school, came to the university and we already knew where you were going to work before you got out of the university. So when you came out just to report, I reported to a boys school. That's why I was sent before I left for my diploma education in England where I did diploma and then I did my masters. I studied for my diploma in England. When I came back, that's when I then registered for a PhD in women education and development. That's how I began my career. After a little while, not a little while, a good while, I taught at the university for 10 years. The 11th year I went on sabbatical and joined UNICEF as a full time consultant on women education for child survival. And while I was there I worked with to see the relationship between education for women and survival for children. And that ran me into working with women on small businesses for them to make money and to learn how to do A few things like saving and so forth and so on for them to be able to look after the children better.

[Lianna Byrne]

So just talk us through exactly how that works. Like who would be coming to you looking for money and how would you make the decision to give it to them or not over to them?

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

1975, women were totally excluded from financial services. So one of the major resolutions of that committee from the first UN Conference on Women was that there is need for women to access resources to be able to articulate their lives in financial matters. So countries went back, people went back, and I wasn't part of that. There's a woman now who was part of that group that came back and on her desk, a few women sat around that table and decided, okay, let's all contribute a little bit of money. And that little bit of money was like $20, $5, $1. And they got together and said, okay, we want to give a little bit money to the women. We want to train them in financial skills so that they can begin their own little businesses that went on. Donors came in and supported that group. But because these were women who are working in their own businesses, they were career women. They only met the way women meet from book clubs, maybe at five o' clock and so forth and so on. So when I came in, the institution died completely. After 10 years of having it as a club, it died. As project of undp, I was recruited in to come and restart the Kenya Women Microfinance Institution. What we did was to make sure that we work with women. We bring women together in groups and together women in groups. We are to travel in the country. Women don't come to us. We went to the women, we went to the villages, we went to the markets and introduced and went through church, went through the government offices, the Ministry of Culture and Social Services and said, we need to meet women. So we were able to meet women by word of mouth. Women had their people here working with us. So we began reorganizing and getting women to get into groups and into groups. We began training them, training them with little money, little money as $30 for them to do something small like bake chapati or madazi and sell and resell and save. And then we taught them the art of saving. You have to save. And it was compulsory for them to save. So we through talking to them, through training them, the word spread around. Then every year we organize. They are coming into Nairobi. Some of them are never set afoot in Nairobi. So it was great every year for them to come to Nairobi to meet me and meet other women. By this time the institution was growing and meet other directors who joined me so that we can have a day talking about women and businesses. That went like, you know, was difficult but we went around the country. We set foot in 45 counties out of 47 and the women repaid their loans. The loans were, you will get $30 if you repay, we will give you $50 if you pay, we'll give you 75. If we pay, we give you $100. Like that. It was incremental. But the women had to prove that they can repay. Now remember, nobody now at that point in times in early 90s, nobody's thinking a woman can borrow a loan in this country and repay. Women were not supposed to be credit worthy. So one of the things we had to do was big campaigns of, you know, with the slogans which later the banks picked up slogans like poor people unbankable. We began by women unbankable, then poor women unbankable, then poor people unbankable. And banks took that up. Later on we actually opened the banking halls for women.

[Lianna Byrne]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service.

[LinkedIn Advertiser]

Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype? Like those five dollar roses at a gas station? Or a secondhand piece of technology that breaks in the first 10 minutes? Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com Broadcast. That's LinkedIn.com Broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.

[Lianna Byrne]

She was the sister who went unnoticed. A daffodil might look plain next to

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

a lily, but on its own there

[Lianna Byrne]

is much to be admired. Now her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing is to be yourself. From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice comes a new Britbox original drama, Mary you will flourish. Based on the best selling novel the Other Bennet Sister. Now streaming only On Britbox. Watch for the free [e-mail] My conversation with Dr. Jennifer Rira left me struck by how understated she is. She was also incredibly warm, easy to talk to, and very open about her own struggles in a way that felt genuinely vulnerable. Here is a woman who helped build one of Africa's most significant microfinance institutions. And yet there's no grand founder mythology in the way she tells her story. She speaks calmly and matter of factly, whether describing taking her baby with her to the UK to study or trying to convince people that poor rural women were worth lending to. But beneath that calm, there's unmistakable steel. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Dr. Jennifer Ririra. Do you remember the first woman you ever lent money to and what she did with it?

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

You'd be surprised. I would put 50,000 shillings in my bag and traveled to the village that time. To begin with, in 1991, I was the MD, I was the cleaner, I was the accountant. I was everything. I opened the office and closed the office. 1992, I got one officer that we didn't have any money to do a bit of accounting. I would take money and go and sit at a market. The first woman I gave a loan to in Karatina, in Nyeri, she didn't repay because she was my friend. So she said, you know, a woman came and give me money and she never repaid.

[Lianna Byrne]

No, you're still looking for the money.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

The second one I gave, I think repaid once. That's. But this time I'd already hired one now one young girl from a cooperative college to help me now to lend. That's when now we began sitting down and putting the processes in place. I had also gotten a few staff to be able to assist in going to lend instead of me going. Because when I went there, they looked at me as their friend. They never saw me as a lender. But when the young people came in aggressively, they already trained what to do, what to say. That made a big difference. And the institution grew cell by cell, because when we went into an area, we made sure that the women are repaying their loans 100% before we opened another office. That way we didn't have any repayment issues at all. Our repayment rate for over 10 years was 100% repayment rate. It was interesting that the women really, this is the first time they are getting some money. So for them it was very good. So this is how we did it until we covered the entire country. By the time I moved on Unless someone else run it as a bank. We had to transform into a microfinance bank. Now that is 2009. We were working with all 45 counties with over 1 million clients, women. And by this time women had learned how to open accounts in the banks and so forth and so on.

[Lianna Byrne]

It's really amazing. And it grew and grew from then, didn't it? You know, grew across countries. It grew in office size and staff size.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

Yeah, it grew. We had branches all over by the time I handed the bank over. Because now my vision now drove me to desire to work on another institution now to work on the holding company to be able to serve women in a different way. We wanted to deal with women and leadership. We wanted to deal with girls excelling in education, not getting married so early to stop FGM genetom mutilation, that's one of them, girls education. And then we needed to think of women and peace because we felt that that's one of the areas we need to deal with, which is not financial, but women and peace. Peace is very important in this country and in development. And we also were working now on women to join political arena. That is why we now in 2018, another dream came on that the women holding company now can establish another institution, the Democracy Trust Fund. The Democracy Trust Fund was supposed to be the arm of Kenya Women holding that deals with political leadership and political aspects of the programming for the institution to make sure we have a difference between differentiate between programming for development and programming for leadership and politics, not mix politics with development matters.

[Lianna Byrne]

Even today, millions of women across Africa, they do remain outside the formal financial system. And we've got numbers from the World Bank's Global Findex. So it says around 49% of women in sub Saharan Africa do not have a bank account, compared with 38% of men. In your opinion, why does this gap persist?

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

Yeah, women continue to be outside the financial system. That's why financial inclusion has become the cliche word. And I'm calling the cliche word because a lot of people don't pay a lot of attention after they say that most of Africa is rural. Although urbanization is taking root now, the financial services, the financial systems that deliver financial services to women are still eluding women right now. Digital banking and all the other fintech systems will be where the ICT infrastructure is. Now you go to some parts in this country and other countries in Africa where I've traveled and you find the infrastructure is so poor. So even fintech will not reach women. And you know, most people living in rural Areas consistently are women, majority of women, because they are confined in their homes. So that, you know, access becomes a very big problem. And women will continue because now we are going technology. And if women can't access because there is no WI fi there, the systems are not there, then poverty also because you can have a router passing through your gate. But a woman has to think, do I want a phone or do I want to save that money to feed my children?

[Lianna Byrne]

So as banking advances in technology, it could risk leaving some women behind.

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

Yes. According to Women's World Banking, there is a divide of 9% women behind men, you know, accessing technology. And I think it's more than that as far as I'm concerned. Because the kind of gadgets that a woman can afford even now in Kenya is most of the women. Not all of them is the one that costs, you know, 1,000, 2,000. What technology company companies have not are trying to do now, and I hope they can do it faster, is to get those small telephones that are not complicated for women to have because education also is there. So you might have technology and you can't operate it. There are so many things that, you know, operate against women in terms of access to financial services.

[Lianna Byrne]

You have helped so many women with microfinance and it is promoted as a solution for women. But sometimes there are critics and they argue that microfinance actually risks trapping women in cycles of debt rather than empowering them. What would you say to that?

[Dr. Jennifer Ririra]

That question has been raised, you know, with me, not only here, but everywhere. It is a very complicated question in the sense that disbursement alone, it demands that it has to be repaid. Now what happens is that when training information, and I'm not saying class schooling, you know, information, access to information that will enable women to realize that if I over borrow and the systems are not there to stop a woman from over borrowing. When I sat on day three today lending to women, we made sure that if a woman is alone, she doesn't get another one. There is need for any institution to keep close to their clients, giving them information so that they understand the danger of over borrowing. It is the over borrowing that kills clients and it's lack or proper management of the loans that they get. I think the systems became lax when to begin with, when the institutions were not many, microfinance institutions were not many, we were able to sit with our women in these meetings. I'm telling you, I called every year and told the women, don't borrow more than one loan. If you borrow from us, don't borrow from anyone else. So what the women do is they go borrow from another institution, come and pay you and take another loan. So you, you sit there, you are very happy they have repaid you, but you don't know they're indebted to three, four others. So that really is the problem, is the women not understanding and the knowledge is not there for them to understand. And then of course women also, once we began providing them with loans, and I say this with a tongue in my cheek, this is where the gender question comes in. They took on so much in the family way, in the family setting and their husbands relaxed. So women, the imbalance, the gender workload, which also is financial load increased for women as we continued to give them access to financial services. But what is the worst evil not to give them and run things on?

[Lianna Byrne]

Thank you for listening to the interview. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can find many more episodes of the interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts, including ones with Botswana's president Duma Boko, entrepreneur Emma Greed, and astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Until next time. Bye for now.

[LinkedIn Advertiser]

Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first but didn't live up to the hype. Like those five dollar roses at a gas station. Or a second hand piece of technology that breaks in the first ten minutes. Marketers know that feeling. We optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for bullspend. Now you can invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest roas of all major ad networks. You'll reach the right buyers because you can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull. Spend. Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a 250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com broadcast that's LinkedIn.com broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.

[Lianna Byrne]

She was the sister who went unnoticed. A daffodil might look plain next to a lily, but on its own there is much to be admired. Now her greatest chapter is yet to come. The most important thing is to be yourself. From the world of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice comes a new BritBox original drama, Mary you Will Flourish, based on the best selling novel the Other Bennet Sister, now streaming only on Britbox. Watch for the free [e-mail].