By Staff Reporter
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan launched the second edition of its Banking on Equality policy, setting new goals for lenders on hiring women, reaching female customers and financing women-run businesses as it works to narrow a gender gap in financial inclusion that stood at 29% in 2025.
The 2026 policy builds on a framework launched in September 2021 at an event addressed by then-President Arif Alvi. It has four aims: strengthening women’s representation and retention in the financial sector, widening their digital access to financial services, supporting women’s entrepreneurship and financial literacy through support hubs, and making better use of gender-disaggregated data for monitoring and outreach.
Banks will face targets for the share of women among new hires, in customer outreach and among branchless banking agents. The announcement didn’t give the numerical targets. Lenders are also advised to offer day care for working mothers and to set career-progression policies that move mid-career women into leadership roles.
On access, the policy tells banks to digitize how women open accounts and use payment services. That means targeted digital onboarding drives, simplified accounts designed for women, and wider use of digital payments among women-led businesses.
On credit, the central bank wants banks to raise the share of women borrowers across their main financing segments, particularly in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. Lenders are encouraged to build a gender lens into credit planning, create simpler and specialized loan products, and work with financial-technology firms and digital platforms. They are also encouraged to adopt alternative credit-assessment and collateral arrangements for women with limited formal financial histories.
To track compliance, the SBP will use a monitoring and evaluation framework, quarterly data reporting and regular mystery-shopping exercises. The policy was finalized after consultations with international and local stakeholders.
The original policy reduced the overall gender gap in financial inclusion from 39% in 2021 to 29% in 2025, the central bank said. Banks hired more than 17,500 women under the program, lifting women’s share of bank staff to 17% from 13%. Lenders also set up dedicated women’s financial services teams to develop products for female customers.
SBP Governor Jameel Ahmad said in October 2025 that active bank accounts held by women had risen to 37 million as of June 2025, from 20 million in September 2021. He said then that the bank was finalizing a second phase that would stress digital tools and remote financing for women-led small businesses.
The SBP says its implementation of the policy won the Policy Achievement Award for Gender Inclusive Finance 2026 from the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. The award is a new category introduced by the network in 2026.
The new policy supports the National Financial Inclusion Strategy’s goal of cutting the gender gap to 25% by 2028. That strategy also targets a national financial inclusion rate of 75% by June 2028. The central bank said the policy will also help implement the World Bank-led Women Entrepreneurship Finance Code, which the SBP has signed.
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