PayPal pledged to invest more than $100m to advance financial inclusion and economic empowerment for women around the world over the next five years.
In support of its mission to build a more inclusive economy, PayPal was selected to join the Generation Equality initiative as a private sector lead for the Economic Justice and Rights Action Coalition in November 2020. The announcement was made during the Generation Equality Forum (GEF), a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, in partnership with civil society.
Commenting on the commitment towards better gender inclusivity, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said, “Improving the financial health of women is essential to building prosperous and resilient communities. Women make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s unbanked and underserved adults, and the economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have only exacerbated these disparities.
“As we work to shape an equitable recovery and an inclusive digital economy, we believe we have a responsibility to help expand the role and participation of women in the financial system and economic growth. With the resources, tools and technologies now at our disposal, we’ve never had a greater opportunity to achieve economic equality.”
The commitment includes several external and internal investments including depositing $100m of its capital into investment funds and depository institutions that are led by women or focused on serving women, as well as companies that can produce greater financial health or economic empowerment of women, among other gender equality outcomes.
PayPal will invest $7m in partnerships to increase access to microloans for women entrepreneurs around the world. It will also contribute $1m to raise awareness and provide incentives to mobilise donations to civil society organizations that support gender equality through PayPal Giving Fund. As part of this, PayPal will recruit gender equality-focused charities to its platform in at least 34 countries by 2023 to further advance resource mobilization for Sustainable Development Goal 5.
In terms of its own company policies, PayPal will conduct an annual assessment to ensure that benefits regarding pay equity, paid leave, caregiver support and workplace sexual harassment prevention meet or exceed best practices, starting in the US with the intent to expand the assessment globally.
PayPal will contribute its resources and expertise to Data2X, a collaborative technical and advocacy platform, working to improve the availability, quality, and use of gender data to make a practical difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide.
This new move comes after PayPal pledged $535m last year to address economic inequality among Black and underserved businesses and communities in the US. For the last five years, PayPal has maintained 100% gender pay equity globally, as well as U.S. ethnic pay equity, and has a strong family leave policies to attract and retain women.
However, PayPal recently faced fire from LGBTQ+ organisation Stonewall over a policy that stops transgender people from changing their names and pronouns. Currently, if someone signs up to PayPal then transitions, it is hard to change their new name or pronouns when making payments. This means anyone getting those payments sees the trans person’s birth name, or ‘deadname’, which they have rejected.
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