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Finance heads at Taiwanese SMEs mostly women

Women are increasingly active in making financial decisions at Asia's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), a research firm's report said on Friday.

A survey of more than 3,000 companies by Kadence Asia-Pacific found that half of all finance heads were females.

SMEs in Thailand and Taiwan have a particularly high proportion of women financial decision makers -- nearly 80 percent -- according to survey results published in the Business Times.

Slightly more than 60 percent of SMEs in Singapore have women in charge of handling their money matters.

In contrast, India stood out in the survey as a male-dominated market, where women held SMEs' purse strings at only 5 percent of the surveyed firms.

For the purpose of the survey, SMEs were defined as non-listed companies with fewer than 200 staff.

"As a result [of the survey], financial institutions will need to align their business activity to reflect gender changes in the Asia-Pacific workforce," Kadence managing director Piers Lee was quoted as saying.

The report said that the relatively high involvement of women in Thailand in financial decision-making roles was driven by the entrepreneurship among young females.

In Taiwan, female chief financial officers (CFOs) were the majority across a range of companies and sectors.

Seventy percent of large SMEs in Malaysia have female CFOs.
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