Empowering Women Workers: Employer enabled Digital Financial Services with Budgeting Tool

Last registered on July 06, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Empowering Women Workers: Employer enabled Digital Financial Services with Budgeting Tool
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0017089
Initial registration date
July 02, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
July 06, 2026, 9:18 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Anant Nyshadham
Affiliation
University of Michigan
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-08-01
End date
2027-11-30
Keywords
Finance & Microfinance, Firms & Productivity, Gender, Labor, Welfare
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
G23, G51, G53
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Despite substantial progress in financial inclusion, many low-income workers remain reliant on cash and informal borrowing and struggle to manage finances effectively between paychecks, limiting meaningful engagement with formal financial services. These challenges are often more pronounced for women, who face greater financial vulnerability and fewer avenues for accessing emergency liquidity. Digital financial services delivered through workplaces offer a promising opportunity to address these constraints by leveraging employer relationships and payroll systems.

In this study, we propose to conduct a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) among workers of Shahi Exports, a garment manufacturing firm in Karnataka, India, in partnership with a fintech provider. Through the study, workers will be offered access to a suite of employer-enabled digital financial services, including earned wage access (EWA), digital microloans, and a digital financial diary application. Access to these products will be experimentally varied across workers to evaluate the individual and combined effects of liquidity, credit, and financial management tools. By leveraging employer-facilitated onboarding and payroll integration, the study aims to understand whether workplace-based digital financial services can
i) increase engagement with formal financial products and promote financial deepening among low-income workers
ii) improve workers’ ability to manage short-term liquidity needs and borrowing decisions, and
iii) enhance overall financial well-being, particularly among women workers.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Nyshadham, Anant. 2026. "Empowering Women Workers: Employer enabled Digital Financial Services with Budgeting Tool." AEA RCT Registry. July 06. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.17089-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The study is a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) among workers of Shahi Exports, a garment manufacturing firm in Karnataka, India, in partnership with a fintech provider. Through the study, workers will be offered access to a suite of employer-enabled digital financial services (DFS) for a period of 9 months, including earned wage access (EWA), digital microloans, and a digital financial diary application. Access to these products will be experimentally varied across workers to evaluate the individual and combined effects of these tools. By leveraging employer-facilitated onboarding and payroll integration, the study aims to understand whether workplace-based digital financial services can
i) increase engagement with formal financial products and promote financial deepening among low-income workers,
ii) improve workers’ ability to manage short-term liquidity needs and borrowing decisions and
iii) enhance overall financial well-being, particularly among women workers.

Along with a control group that continues under the business-as-usual scenario, the study involves three treatment groups. The first treatment group receives access only to employer-facilitated digital microloans. The second treatment group receives access to both digital microloans and earned wage access (EWA), which allows workers to withdraw a portion of their earned wages before payday. The third treatment group, in addition to digital micro-loans and EWA, also receives access to a digital financial diary application designed to help workers track their income, expenditures, borrowing, and savings. By comparing outcomes across these groups, the study evaluates the causal impact of digital financial services on workers’ financial behaviour, engagement with formal financial services, financial well-being and workplace outcomes, including productivity, absenteeism, attrition,.
Intervention Start Date
2026-09-01
Intervention End Date
2027-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
I. First stage outcomes: Take up and usage of employer-enabled digital financial products:
a. Activation of DFS
b. Take up: i. EWA ii. Digital credit iii. Financial diaries
c. Time to first use of EWA and Digital credit
d. Frequency of EWA withdrawals
e. Number of digital loans taken (applied vs approved)
f. Loan size

B. Workplace Outcomes
i. Productivity
ii. Absenteeism
iii. Attrition
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
1. Absenteeism is measured as the number of working days for which a worker was absent in a month.
2. Attrition is captured through workers' likelihood of exit in a given month. The last working day a worker was present in the factory is taken as the exit date of that worker.
3. Productivity is measured as the ratio of the time taken by an individual worker to complete a particular task against the standardized allocated time that should be taken to complete the task. We also refer to this as efficiency.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Control – Business as Usual: Workers in the control group will not receive access to any of the study products and will continue with their existing financial arrangements.

Treatment 1 – Digital Microloans: Workers will be provided access to employer-facilitated digital microloans through the fintech platform.

Treatment 2 – Earned Wage Access (EWA) + Digital Microloans: In addition to access to digital microloans, workers will be offered earned wage access (EWA), enabling them to withdraw a portion of their accrued wages before the regular payday.

Treatment 3 – EWA + Digital Microloans + Financial Diary: Along with access to digital microloans and EWA, workers will receive access to a digital financial diary application that allows them to record and monitor income, expenditures, savings, and borrowing activities. The application is designed to support budgeting, financial planning and more informed use of financial products.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomisation would done in the office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
Unit of randomisation would be an individual worker.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1800 workers
Sample size: planned number of observations
1800 workers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
450 workers in each of the treatment arms, a total of 1800 workers
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
The minimum detectable effects (MDEs) estimated at 5% significance and 80% power.
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Good Business Lab Foundation
IRB Approval Date
2025-09-01
IRB Approval Number
GBL20250901
Analysis Plan

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