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Check Your Bias: Gender Bias Scorecard for Lenders

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There are many ways to measure and track fairness in lending. This scorecard offers some of the more common fairness indicators used by Women’s World Banking in its diagnostic process with lenders. Paying attention to these indicators, particularly over time, will offer institutions an evidence base so they can identify areas in which they excel and areas for improvement. Since not all credit processes are the same, the list of fairness-related questions that an institution will ask might vary, and we hope institutions will interpret and adapt these questions to their needs. The six dimensions of fairness in Women’s World Banking’s Gender Bias Scorecard are: 1) credit score, 2) approval rate, 3) loan amount, 4) interest rate, 5) collateral size, and 6) characteristics of rejected candidates. The complete descriptions of these dimensions and how to measure them are reflected in the scorecard. To use this scorecard you will need individual-level data on past loan applicants including credit score, decision, loan terms, and any relevant control variables.

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