Beyond Celebration: Listening to the Women Building Italy's Economy
A conversation between Ezgi Bozkurt Yılmaz, Marketing & PR Lead at wamo, and Antonio Mazza, Country Head of wamo Italy
Every March, businesses publish messages celebrating women. The words are often warm, positive and well-intentioned. But for the women actually building companies, employing people and managing the daily uncertainty of entrepreneurship, recognition alone is rarely enough.
At wamo, we wanted to begin somewhere different: by listening.
As part of our Women Who Build Europe initiative, wamo partnered with Associazione GammaDonna to study the experiences, ambitions and daily challenges of women entrepreneurs in Italy. The research, conducted in April 2026 among 223 Italian business owners, revealed a community defined by financial confidence, resilience and ambition, but also one still required to overcome biases and structural obstacles that have little to do with the quality of their businesses.
To mark International Women's Day, wamo also collaborated with Italian artist and illustrator Francesco Poroli to create a special-edition virtual Visa debit card: a visual tribute to the women who built Europe and those building its future.
wamo in numbers
- €10 million Series A led by Tcee Fund IV (3TS Capital Partners), with Oleka Capital and existing investors participating
- 15,000+ SMEs across Europe use wamo's multi-currency business account, adoption tripled in the last twelve months
- More than 10,000 Italian small businesses, merchants and freelancers rely on wamo, making Italy a key market
- In 2026: a new representative office in Bologna, an expanded local team and new SME products, with a dedicated focus on women's entrepreneurship
Source: Il Sole 24 Ore, Fintech+, 24 April 2026
We spoke with Antonio Mazza, Country Head of wamo Italy, about what the research taught us, why operational challenges matter as much as access to capital, and what it means for a financial platform to support, not simply celebrate, women in business.
Why we started by listening
Ezgi: Antonio, Women Who Build Europe started as a campaign, but it quickly became something broader. What did we want to understand?
Antonio: When we began developing the initiative, we realised that much of the available information about women entrepreneurs no longer reflected the world in which they were actually operating. The business environment has changed dramatically since the pandemic. Technology has evolved, customer behaviour has changed, and the responsibilities carried by founders have become even more complex.
We did not want to begin with assumptions. We wanted to understand what women business owners in Italy were experiencing today: how confident they felt managing their finances, what was preventing their companies from growing, how they experienced relationships with investors and financial institutions, and what they needed from the next generation of financial services.
That is why our partnership with GammaDonna was so important. They have spent years building a meaningful community around innovative women entrepreneurs. Together, we were able to create a much more current and human picture of the market.
The bias behind the numbers
Ezgi: One of the strongest findings was that 76% of respondents had experienced gender-related stereotypes or comments from investors, customers or partners. Almost half said they were not immediately recognised as the owner of their own business. Were you surprised?
Antonio: The scale was striking, but what matters most is what sits behind those percentages.
These are women who have founded companies, built products, recruited teams and taken financial risks. Yet many still enter a meeting and find that their authority is questioned before their business is understood.
The effect is even stronger among digital entrepreneurs and startup founders. In the survey, 52% of this group said they frequently experienced bias from venture capital investors or other stakeholders, compared with 36% across the overall sample. Thirty-seven per cent felt undervalued relative to male peers when engaging with financiers.
These findings describe more than isolated moments of prejudice. They represent an economic inefficiency. When credibility is distributed according to stereotypes rather than ability, strong companies receive less attention, promising ideas receive less capital, and the economy loses potential.
Women founders are not asking for preferential treatment. They are asking to be assessed on the quality of what they are building.
Operational pressure, not just capital
Ezgi: The research also challenged the assumption that finance is the only, or even the primary, difficulty faced by women entrepreneurs.
Antonio: Exactly. Access to finance is clearly important, but the survey showed that the most immediate pressures are often operational.
Forty-six per cent identified dissatisfaction or difficulty in managing the business as a threat to its survival, while 40% pointed to bureaucracy and regulatory complexity. Finding and retaining the right people was identified by 59% as the leading barrier to growth.
These are problems that accumulate quietly. A payment that needs to be followed up. An expense that must be reconciled. A tax deadline. A supplier issue. A new employee who needs access to a card. A transfer that requires multiple steps. Individually, they may appear small. Together, they consume the founder's most limited resource: time.
This is why we believe the future of business finance must go beyond providing an account. Financial platforms should actively reduce administrative effort and help business owners operate more effectively.
The market agrees: payments are becoming process
- Juniper Research estimates B2B card payments will grow from $5.9 trillion in 2026 to $10.9 trillion in 2030, nearly doubling, and outpacing the overall B2B market
- Global B2B payments are projected to exceed $224 trillion by 2030
- The competitive battleground is no longer the transaction itself but automation, control and integration, payments as a native part of procurement, accounting, supplier management and reconciliation
Source: Juniper Research, via Il Sole 24 Ore Fintech+
Confident, not simplified
Ezgi: Despite those challenges, 79% of the women surveyed said they felt confident managing their company's finances.
Antonio: That is one of the most important findings because it contradicts an outdated narrative.
The women in this research are not lacking financial confidence. They are capable financial decision-makers. They are also highly pragmatic about what they expect from a business account.
Seventy-nine per cent prioritised low or transparent fees, while 72% highlighted the quality of the digital experience through mobile and online access. Receiving customer payments, covering everyday operating expenses and making tax payments were among the most common ways they used their business accounts.
The message is clear: women entrepreneurs do not need simplified or patronising financial products. They need powerful, transparent tools that respect their time and give them greater control.
Time as a financial variable
Ezgi: Time appears throughout the research, not simply as a productivity issue, but as a personal and structural one.
Antonio: Yes, and this may be the finding that should make businesses and policymakers think most deeply.
Almost one in three respondents experienced a temporary reduction in activity or revenue following the birth of a child. Among mothers who were business owners, 41% reported that their business had slowed down. Forty-five per cent of those who had considered closing their company cited the difficulty of balancing work and family, and 38% referred to personal wellbeing.
When respondents were asked what they wanted most, "more time for myself" ranked above access to funding, greater market recognition and finding a mentor or support network.
That tells us something fundamental. Time is not separate from financial services. Poor financial infrastructure creates administration. Administration creates pressure. Pressure affects both business performance and personal wellbeing.
Our responsibility is therefore not only to help customers move money. It is to help them recover time.
"In B2B, the new unit of measure is not the single transaction, it is the time saved on controls, reconciliations, exceptions and audit." — Il Sole 24 Ore, Fintech+
Where AI fits in
Ezgi: How does AI fit into this vision?
Antonio: We see AI as a practical layer of support for business owners.
Many of the tasks consuming entrepreneurs' time are repetitive, fragmented and administrative. In the future, AI agents embedded within business accounts should be able to help organise expenses, identify unusual transactions, prepare information for accountants, monitor cash flow, manage invoices and remind users about actions that require attention.
The objective is not to introduce AI because it is fashionable. It is to delegate work that does not require the founder's creativity or judgement.
A business owner should be spending more time with customers, developing products, supporting employees and finding new opportunities, not searching through transactions or repeating administrative tasks that technology can perform.
For us, this research provides a mandate to build around real needs rather than abstract innovation.
Where the market is heading
- Agentic payments are emerging in B2B: invoices received, verified and matched to orders automatically, with an AI agent selecting the most efficient payment method and updating the books, leaving a full audit trail
- Stablecoins now account for roughly $226 billion in identifiable B2B flows, with corporate users reporting cost savings of at least 10%; supplier payments are the leading use case
- In Q1, AI captured almost 80% of all venture capital, while fintech funding concentrated on proven, commercially mature platforms
Sources: Morph report and CB Insights, via Il Sole 24 Ore Fintech+
Art, symbol, and substance
Ezgi: Alongside the research, wamo worked with Francesco Poroli on a special-edition virtual card for International Women's Day. Why bring art into the initiative?
Antonio: Data can explain the scale of a challenge, but art can make people feel its significance.
Francesco created an image of a strong and proud woman, with a recognisably Italian landscape emerging through and around her. The work pays tribute to the women whose businesses, ideas and labour shape communities and contribute to the country's economy.
The design also draws inspiration from food and hospitality, industries that are central to Italy's identity and in which women represent an increasingly important entrepreneurial and professional force.
The card was never intended to be a decorative gesture detached from the wider programme. It sits alongside the GammaDonna research and a dedicated proposition for women-led businesses, including six months of access to wamo's financial platform at no cost during the campaign period.
We wanted creativity, research and practical support to reinforce one another.
Ezgi: So is the card a symbol, a product or a statement?
Antonio: It is all three, but only because it belongs to something larger.
It is a product that customers can use. It is a symbol of recognition. And it is a statement that financial services can express culture, identity and values without losing their practical purpose.
But a beautifully designed card cannot remove structural bias. A campaign cannot solve the challenges of running a company. What it can do is open a conversation, and demonstrate the kind of company we are trying to become.
The real work is what comes afterwards: improving products, using research to shape priorities, reducing administrative complexity and continuing to listen to the businesses we serve.
What comes next
Ezgi: What should happen next?
Antonio: We need to move from celebrating women entrepreneurs to designing financial services with their realities in mind.
That means asking better questions. It means understanding that a founder's challenges are interconnected: capital, operations, regulation, talent, time and wellbeing are not separate topics. They influence one another every day.
It also means treating women-led businesses not as a niche segment, but as an essential part of Europe's economic future.
And it means backing that commitment with concrete economics. Through our POS free allowance package, we expect to deliver more than €150 million in support and savings to Italian SMEs over the next three years, real money that stays in the businesses we serve, instead of being absorbed by transaction costs.
At wamo, Women Who Build Europe is not intended to be a message that appears once a year. It is an ongoing commitment to learn from the people building businesses and to translate what we learn into better products, smarter technology and more relevant support.
Because the women building Europe do not need to be told that they are inspiring.
They need an ecosystem designed to help them build.
wamo builds business accounts, cards and payment tools designed around how entrepreneurs across Europe actually work, including a dedicated commitment to Italy's women-led businesses through the Women Who Build Europe initiative.
