January 28th, 2009 by Michael Oliver

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Smart people in lending know this but few others even comprehend it, yet statistics show clearly that women have a much higher chance of repaying a loan then do men. According to Grameen Bank (who published their findings) women have a re-payment ratio much higher then men in fact their statistics show women pay back 97% of the time while men pay back only 89%! Also the loan dropout rate also proves this theory only 15% for women while men carry a 25%. Not that I’m a banker (in any way) BUT I will say by far in my experiences with clients of mine that were single women by in large have made home purchases that were much more conservative even when they could “qualify for more” AND (again in my own experiences) those same women on average put more money down, and had more money saved prior to the home purchase then (again on average) my single men clients. So just by my own simple and by no means “scientific” sales record I would say the women were much better credit risks then the men were by far. You can read the Grameen Bank published information at: http://www.gdrc.org/icm/grameenbank.html

Actually when I think about this it makes absolutely a lot of sense, men like to go out and gamble and throw money around (a lot of us do anyway). For the most part women don’t do things like that and their focus is much more on their family and children’s well-being vs. men’s approach to things. (That’s actually been statistically proven so for all those people saying “oh that’s not true”…Unfortunately it is 100% true again not all men are like this just as I’m sure some women like to go gamble and aren’t the best money managers around but on the “average” that’s how everything shakes out.) This bank Grameen has like a 99.5% repayment ratio as they said they typically only lend to women and they do a high amount of research and background on each potential borrower. So with a 99.5% re-payment ratio I would essentially believe anything that bank told me about lending money to be a truth and nothing but. To give background on Grameen they are a 3rd world bank who gives out micro-loans. (Very small loans in dollar amount but they give out a lot of these “micro loans” to help lift people out of poverty around the globe.) At the same time this bank is a very legit business that practices serious lending principles and disciplines. Maybe (just maybe) if the US banks (and the other banks across the globe) did things a little more like Grameen the ridiculous mess the world’s economy is in would not nearly have gotten to the imbalance and “bankrupt” status it currently is in.