In a groundbreaking move for gender-inclusive economic development, the Dominican Republic has made history as the first nation in Latin America and the Caribbean to embed mandatory gender-disaggregated MSME financing data reporting into its national financial supervision regulatory framework.
The new rule, issued by the Superintendency of Banks of the Dominican Republic (SB) via official circular CSB-REG-2026000008, imposes quarterly reporting requirements on all licensed banks and other regulated financial entities operating within the country. Under the mandate, institutions must break down data on micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) financing by the gender of business ownership, including detailed records of the share of female ownership for each client, the volume of loan applications from women-led ventures, approval and rejection rates, and documented justifications for every loan denial. The first mandatory reporting period will conclude on September 30, 2026, giving institutions time to adjust their internal data systems to meet the new standards.
This policy intervention is directly aligned with the global WE Finance Code initiative, a collaborative program spearheaded by the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The core mission of the WE Finance Code is to close the persistent global financing gap that disproportionately blocks growth opportunities for women-led businesses, which are systematically more likely to face credit access barriers than male-owned enterprises.
Recent high-level coordination meetings brought together representatives from the SB, the Dominican Republic Bankers Association (ABA), and the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group) to map out the next stage of implementation. A key milestone on the agenda is the preparation of the Dominican Republic’s first national report of gender-disaggregated financial indicators to be submitted to the OECD for regional and global benchmarking.
Private sector buy-in for the initiative has been nearly universal across the Dominican financial system. The ABA confirms that 26 major financial institutions, which collectively hold approximately 97% of all assets in the country’s financial sector, have already formally joined the WE Finance Code initiative. Since collaborative work on the framework launched in 2023, participating entities have collaborated to develop unified reporting standards, build out the technical infrastructure required for consistent data collection, and adopt a shared regulatory definition of women-led MSMEs that aligns with the new national mandate.
The IDB Group’s private sector lending arm, IDB Invest, has provided critical financial backing to advance the effort, committing over $160 million in targeted investments and financing programs designed to expand affordable capital access for women entrepreneurs across the Dominican Republic.
Today, the WE Finance Code operates in more than 33 countries across all regions of the world. With the Dominican Republic’s landmark regulatory integration, proponents expect the initiative to gain further momentum and expand rapidly across other Latin American and Caribbean nations in the years ahead, opening up new economic opportunities for millions of women business owners across the region.