According to statistics complied by the Khadijah bint Khuwailid Center at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI), the volume of women’s capital in Saudi Arabia alone has increased to SR60 billion ($16 billion).

Pioneering Saudi businesswomen and their importance to the banking sector was first noticed nearly a decade ago when local banks began opening special branches for women. The idea and initiative finally took off in 2005 but was still geared toward highly educated businesswomen. This left the middle and lower-classes dependent on male guardians to deposit their money or resorting to creating their own bank at home — a move which in turn has created little financial turnover and what most investment professionals see as dead capital.

However, all of this has recently changed, not only at the local level but also on a global scale. Saudi women are no longer being viewed as stay-at-home women with only money from their husbands for household purchases. They are now being seen by international banks and financial institutions as financial powerhouses.

One such international forerunner, BNP Paribas, which has had a presence in the region for over 35 years and branches in six GCC countries including Saudi Arabia, is known according to its slogan as “The Bank of a Changing World.” BNP Paribas’ women-friendly banking proves it is aware of the change and impact Saudi women and women in the GCC in general can provide to their local branches, and the role this wealth can play in helping its bottom-line, especially during the current global economic crisis.

“I think Saudi women’s wealth exceeds billions of Saudi riyals and I’m sure that their net worth is already being invested and participating in economic recovery,” said Nicolas Piponiot-Laroche, deputy general manager and head of corporate at BNP Paribas.

Piponiot-Laroche also said that the bank is currently expanding its corporate banking sector in Saudi Arabia and that a personal banking network is also necessary. “We have only one branch in Saudi Arabia. However, we attend to a clientele with large corporate banking needs. Our Wealth Management Division in the GCC, headed by a woman, is attending to a clientele of private customers including Saudi women,” he said.

He also stated that through BNP Paribas, Saudi women are able to naturally invest in any BNP Paribas international investment fund, real estate, or stock market exchanges through the bank’s special team of wealth management professionals from Dubai or Bahrain.

The deputy general manager also explained that ironically in Western Europe, Africa, Morocco, Turkey and even the United States, BNP Paribas is targeting women as key customers by developing a personal banking network with specific products and services for women.

While some companies are working to empower women in the region, others are lagging behind due to bureaucracy, lack of implementation of local law and traditional gender inequality. This in turn, according to local businesswomen, has led to a misuse of their wealth and a number of them deciding not to trust investing as an option for their money.

“I know very well, being a Saudi myself, that women in this country have massive wealth at their disposals but the problem is that they are not properly channeling it into the right types of investments and, therefore, in many cases, these funds are being misused,” said a local businesswomen and executive at a major bank in Jeddah.

“I feel that they need more awareness which should be provided by local banks because they should know that it isn’t just a matter of putting money in banks and hoping for a return but they should be taught how to invest it in a way that contains the least amount of risk,” she said.