It’s important to ‘feed’ women entrepreneurs to help drive the economy: Fmr. CFTC Commissioner

Sharon Bowen, Former Commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers to discuss the launch of Seneca Women credit card.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Now there's a new partnership between Mastercard and Seneca Women. And it's aimed at helping uplift women economically. So here's how it works. Cardholders are rewarded for shopping at women-owned businesses and will also help drive donations to nonprofits that are focused on women. So we're joined now by Sharon Bowen, former commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Sharon is also a Seneca Women partner.

Now, Sharon, I do want to get to the card in just a moment. And there's so much that we have to chat about there. But I do want to, just for a second, lean on your expertise at the CFTC. That is a mouthful. We do have cryptocurrencies right now booming. I'm wondering if you think that digital currencies are essentially here to stay and what role should or could the commission have in regulating them.

SHARON BOWEN: I think they are definitely here to stay. And before I left the commission, we had determined that Bitcoin was a commodity. And I think as a regulator, putting on my regulator hat again, what's really important is to make sure that there's no market manipulation and that we have transparent markets. We all know what happened with the 2008 financial crisis when we had opaque dark market.

And so, it's really important that investors are really protected. And I'm sure that the regulators in this Biden administration will do all that they can to not stifle innovation, but also to give proper guidance and protection to investors as well.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, let's talk about the card now. As I mentioned, card holders are essentially rewarded for shopping at women-owned businesses. How do those rewards work?

SHARON BOWEN: So the good news is, you get 3% cash back when you shop at the Seneca Women marketplace. This marketplace will launch with over 1 million women businesses. And we're hoping that that number is going to grow a lot because we're also asking people to nominate businesses. So you can nominate your favorite women-owned business that's in your neighborhood and help support that business as well. You get 2% cash back for your top spending categories. And you get 1% cash back for all of your other purchases.

And the thing that's really unique about this as well is that you can use your awards to donate to women nonprofits. And we know that people want to make a difference and want to see measurable impact. So this is just a great way to support women-owned businesses and support nonprofits that support women and girls as well.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now does this require that cardholders research the companies before they shop? And is there a concern that folks are just going to continue to shop at the same places that they always did and that, therefore, some of these women-owned businesses, these female entrepreneurs might be missed?

SHARON BOWEN: Well, the good news is, these businesses that come into our directory, you know, have been vetted. You know, obviously, we hope that people would nominate businesses. You know, it's easy to nominate. You know, there will be an application process, but you know, the bar is not that high because the goal is to have there be a marketplace, where you can go to one place and shop. And if you want to shop at your woman-owned business in your neighborhood every day, that's a good thing. That's a good thing for that women-owned business. It's a good thing for you as a consumer to support that business.

KRISTIN MYERS: Now, this is obviously just one piece in a very large puzzle when it comes to helping women be better economically and achieve the parity of their male cohort. I'm wondering how much you think this effort is going to help boost women financially, economically, and what else we really need to be thinking about to help women.

SHARON BOWEN: Well, we know that women-owned businesses and startups always had barriers to entry in terms of access to capital, loans, and credit. I think something like 2.3% VC funding went to our new businesses, which is a really low percentage. And we know that women, when they receive loans, those loans amounts are usually 30% lower than for their male counterparts.

And so what we're hoping is that we can help propel women in the economy because we also know that women are drivers of our economy. Small businesses are drivers of our economy. COVID actually highlighted, in many respects, the need for us to even more so support these women-owned businesses because they were disproportionately affected by COVID, you know, as well. And we do know before COVID women-owned businesses were growing at three times the national rate.

And so for us to have a real recovery, I think it's important to feed that engine of growth in our communities, feed the women-owned entrepreneurs to help drive business, and to drive our economy frankly, and to drive jobs in your neighborhood, which we need jobs as well.

KRISTIN MYERS: Absolutely, we already know studies show when you help women, you really do help everyone. Sharon Bowen, former commissioner of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, I should also mention the first Black American CFTC commissioner. Thanks so much for joining us today.

SHARON BOWEN: Thank you so much for having me.