HSBC backs FemTick accreditation for women's health

HSBC Innovation Banking has joined eight other organisations as a founding partner of FemTick, a new accreditation for service providers working with women's health businesses. Developed by CensHERship, the scheme is designed to identify firms that treat the sector fairly.

FemTick launches as women's health companies report repeated problems accessing banking, payments, insurance and eCommerce services, with automated risk systems and classification models flagging their products or language as high risk. The other founding partners are Tokio Marine Kiln, Commerce, Withum, Practicus, Novabook, Mills & Reeve, LT PR and Communia.

The accreditation is aimed at financial and commercial providers that support women's health businesses from launch to expansion. Assessments cover leadership and accountability, risk classification and policy, and culture and customer experience. Organisations must meet CensHERship's threshold to receive accreditation.

The backdrop is a sector that says it has struggled with systems that treat terms such as "menstrual", "vagina" or "sexual health" as indicators of adult content or other restricted activity. According to CensHERship's 2026 Bias Burden report, every women's health company surveyed had encountered barriers when seeking financial or commercial services.

The same research found that more than 60% of respondents had lost revenue as a result. Some businesses also faced delayed launches, operational disruption, and higher legal and operating costs.

Earlier findings cited by CensHERship showed that 75% of women's health companies surveyed had been refused service or denied an account, while 61% had had an account closed. In one case, intimate wellness marketplace SheSpot was placed in the same risk category as firearms and tobacco.

Market gap

The launch comes as investors and service providers pay closer attention to women's health as a commercial market. CensHERship pointed to PwC estimates that the sector could represent a USD $600 billion market opportunity by 2030.

Clio Wood, Co-founder of CensHERship, set out the group's case for the initiative.

"Women's health is one of the largest and fastest-growing opportunities in global healthcare, yet the infrastructure supporting the sector has not always evolved at the same pace," Wood said.

"Our founding partners for FemTick recognise the scale of the opportunity and are among the first movers helping build the infrastructure needed for the sector to scale."

Anna O'Sullivan, Co-founder of CensHERship, said the accreditation is intended to make supportive providers easier to identify. "FemTick is about recognising what good looks like and making it visible," O'Sullivan said.

"There are already banks, insurers, payment providers and other organisations actively adapting how they work to support women's health companies, and we want to put a spotlight on them.

"Our founding partners recognise both the scale of the opportunity and the role they can play in helping the sector grow. By bringing those organisations together around a common standard, we want to help build the commercial infrastructure women's health will need for its next stage of growth."

Founding partners

The founding group spans banking, insurance, eCommerce, accountancy, legal and advisory services, executive search, communications and digital platforms. The partners will help shape the next stage of the accreditation as it expands to other financial and commercial providers in the women's health market.

Emma Stephens, Head of Growth and Financing, HSBC Innovation Banking UK, linked the issue to broader financing and commercial hurdles in the sector.

"Women's health is a fast-growing area of healthcare innovation with significant unmet need. We're seeing high-quality innovation across the sector, but companies still face barriers to accessing capital, commercialising their products and scaling successfully. With one of the world's strongest innovation ecosystems, the UK is well placed to drive progress in this space, and we're proud to support the extraordinary innovators shaping its future," Stephens said.

Insurance provider Tokio Marine Kiln also highlighted barriers faced by founders in the market.

"Women's health is a fast-growing and increasingly important area of healthcare, but too many founders still face unnecessary barriers when trying to access the insurance and financial services they need to grow. As underwriters, we have a responsibility to understand emerging sectors on their own terms and to build solutions that reflect the real risks and opportunities they present. We're proud to support FemTick as a founding insurance partner and to help create clearer, fairer pathways for women's health businesses to scale with confidence," said Kirsten Shastri-Moscher, Head of Life Sciences at Tokio Marine Kiln.

Investor Cristina Ljungberg, Co-founder at The Case for Her, pointed to the role of infrastructure in the sector's development.

"As women's health innovation continues to expand globally, access to the right financial and commercial infrastructure will increasingly matter to companies looking to scale. Initiatives like FemTick give founders greater visibility of the organisations that understand this market, while recognising the service providers investing in its long-term growth," Ljungberg said.