Informed Consent Form

The Cooperative Bank of Oromia (CBO) is partnering with the Africa Gender Innovation Lab on a research study. Before you decide whether to take part, we want to explain what the study is about and what it would mean for you.

We are studying how different bank products are used by women-owned businesses in Ethiopia. Everyone in the study will have the chance to use SouqPass, a digital business management product. Some people who participate in the study may also be offered a new kind of digital loan that takes into account your business revenues.

You were invited because you are a woman entrepreneur who has repaid at least one loan from CBO's Michu digital lending program, have a CBO bank account, own a licensed business with a tax identification number, and are the decision-maker for your business.

If you agree to participate, you will be asked to:

• Sign up for the SouqPass digital platform and answer some questions about you and your business.
• Regularly record your business revenues in SouqPass for three months.
• Participate in ongoing surveys — if you track your business data for 3 months, you will be contacted about 8 months later to complete a survey lasting up to 2 hours.
• Share your data — you agree that the researchers may access your financial information at CBO. Data will be connected to you through a code and will not include your name.

Some people will participate in additional study activities, determined only by chance (like a lottery). If you record your revenues for 3 months, you will be assigned to one of four groups. One in five participants will receive a revenue-based loan offer; groups 1 and 2 will not receive a loan offer.

Registering for SouqPass will take about 30 minutes. You decide how much time to spend tracking your revenue, but you must enter your revenue at least 3 times to participate. If you track for three months, you will be contacted about 8 months later to complete a survey of up to 2 hours.

Your participation in this study is voluntary. If you don't want to be in the study, that is OK. If you join now and change your mind later, that's OK too. You can decide not to answer any question, skip any question, and stop at any time.

Your answers are confidential, and only the research team will have access to them. We remove your name and identifiable information and replace it with a code. Data is stored securely on password-protected servers. Results are presented as group statistics; no individual is identified. In the future, your de-identified data may be shared with other researchers or used for future studies.

You may receive a small monthly incentive of 500 ETB for revenue tracking, and may have a chance to apply for a larger, uncollateralized loan — depending on the group you are assigned to. Deciding not to participate will not affect any benefits or services you are otherwise eligible for. The only risk is a small chance of unauthorized access to your data; our confidentiality procedures are designed to reduce this risk.

You may contact Tewodros Tassew Kebede at tkebede@worldbank.org, +251 11 518 5544, or Shanthi Manian at smanian1@worldbank.org with any questions or concerns about the research study.