Digital finance leads women entrepreneurship and poverty mitigation for sustainable development in Bangladesh

Abstract This study investigates how digital finance positively impacts the advancement of women's entrepreneurship, empowerment, and poverty reduction in Bangladesh. Covering the period from 2011 to 2023 and drawing from annual data, it sheds light on the transformative effects of digital finance on women's entrepreneurship, empowerment, and poverty reduction. Employing fully modified OLS and canonical co-integration regression models, the study explores the dynamic relationship among the variables. The findings reveal that mobile banking and agent banking have a significant influence on women's entrepreneurship at the 1 percent level. Additionally, women's employment, empowerment, and poverty reduction are shown to have a notable impact on the development of digital finance at the 5 percent level. Hence, policymakers are encouraged to formulate effective strategies to capitalize on the potential of the female population through digital finance. Introducing nationwide digital entrepreneurship schemes emerges as a promising strategy to maximize the benefits of digital finance.