On a scale of 0-100, Pakistan scores 62.8, just behind top-ranked Peru's 67.8 and second-ranked Bolivia's 64.7 in overall global rankings of 55 countries. Among nations in South Asia region, India ranks 27 with a score of 43.1 and Bangladesh ranks 43 with a score of 30.9. Sri Lanka is at #48 with a score of 27.4 followed by Nepal at 51 scoring 26.1.
Among various categories, Pakistan ranks #1 in regulatory framework and practices and #5 in supporting institutional framework.
Here's an excerpt on Asia from the EIU report titled "Global microscope on the microfinance business environment":
"Pakistan and the Philippines again top the regional rankings for East and South Asia. These countries both finished in the top ten globally, signifying strong environments for microfinance. Indeed, Pakistan and the Philippines came first and second globally, respectively, in the Regulatory Framework and Practices category, suggesting strong regulatory regimes and good prospects for MFIs to enter the sector and perform effectively. The Philippines, for example, has had a strong enabling environment for microfinance for more than a decade. Cambodia is third best in Asia and makes it into the top 25% globally. India comes next, but fell precipitously after the crisis that struck the sector last year. Mongolia finished fourth in Asia, but was the region’s most-improved performer."
Recently, Pakistan's central bank governor Haris Anwar said that large segments the nation's population have no bank accounts and many do not understand why it puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to their personal financial management. According to Pakistan Access to Finance Survey (A2FS), only 12 percent of the population has access to formal financial services. Of the remaining 88 percent, only 32 percent are informally served and 56 percent are completely excluded, Anwar said, adding that according to the A2FS analysis, about 40 percent of the financially excluded population reported lack of understanding of financial products as the main reason for financial exclusion.
It has long been recognized by poverty alleviation experts that pursuing policies for increasing financial inclusion, such as encouraging microfinance, are absolutely essential to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty in Pakistan, where 50% of the workforce is made up of low-end self-employed. Other efforts toward bringing financial services to the poor and lower middle class in Pakistan include financial literacy initiatives and growth of branchless mobile banking in city slums and rural areas of the country.
Pakistan’s first-ever National Financial Literacy Program was launched earlier this year with the support and collaboration of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Pakistan Banks’ Association (PBA), Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN), Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) and BearingPoint consultants.
The growth of branchless banking in Pakistan is now being held up a success story at international fora. Within a span of just two years, there are now almost 18,000 branchless banking outlets surpassing the 10,000 conventional bank branches, according to Governor Anwar. UBL Omni’s branchless banking service launched in April 2010 by United Bank has won several contracts to disburse payments for nongovernment organizations and government schemes to help those affected by floods. UBL reports that at the end of June it had 5,000 agents disbursing payments to 2 million recipients under these programs. UBL Omni has also started accepting loan repayments for microfinance institutions (MFIs) and providing cash management facilities for businesses.
According to a recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia" which shows that 63% of Pakistan's workforce is self-employed, including 13% high-end self-employed. Salaried and daily wage earners make up only 37% of the workforce. Access to money is necessary for many of these entrepreneurs to succeed in realizing their dreams.
The history of microfinance in Pakistan started with the launch of Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in Kutchi Abadies (shanty towns) of Karachi in early 1980’s, according to a paper published by Abdul Qayyum and Munir Ahmed. In the late 1960s, prior to OPP, a few NGOs in the rural areas of Pakistan began to experiment with microcredit by offering subsidized loans. However, they mostly failed to reach the poor due to abuse and corruption. Now there are dozens of Micro Finance Institutions working in Pakistan. The MFIs in Pakistan can be divided into different groups based on their uniqueness that separates them from other financial institutions and makes them similar in terms of the way they function.
The first group consists of financial institutions with microfinance as a separate product line. The share of microfinance related activities of these institutions is up to 10 percent. This group includes Orix Leasing and the Bank of Khyber –both are profit making organizations and consider microfinance as a separate product line.
The second group refers to the specialized MFI’s, which includes two microfinance banks - The Khushhali Bank and First Microfinance Bank Limited (FMBL) - and two NGOs - KASHF Foundation and Asasah. All these institutions completely focus on provision of financial services and also have commercial focus as well.
Third category MFIs related to activities of the Rural Support Programs which deals with integrated Rural Development Programs with microfinance as one of its activities. These organizations are National Rural Support Programs (NRSP), Punjab Rural Support Programs (PRSP) and Sarhad Rural Support Programs (SRSP). The last group consists of private NGOs. These NGOs are basically integrated development organizations with microfinance as one of their activities. These include Orangi Pilot Project, Sungi Foundation, Taraqee Foundation, Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (TRDP), Sindh Agricultural & Forestry Workers Coordinating Organization (SAFWCO) and Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (DAMEN), among others.
Khushhali Bank was established in August 2000 as part of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy. The Pakistan Microfinance Sector Development Program (MSDP) was developed with the technical assistance and funding of the Asian Development Bank, which provided a US$150 million loan to the government of Pakistan, US$70 million being used for micro-loans provided by KB. Headquartered in Islamabad, KB operates under the central bank's supervision (State Bank of Pakistan) with several commercial banks operating as its primary shareholders.
To broaden access, there are now efforts underway to offer Shariah-compliant microfinance products to those who are reluctant to participate in interest-based banking. Farz Foundation is among the first to do so. It is engaged in Islamic micro-financing for livestock and agriculture among the rural poor.
Pakistan has a long way to go to achieve financial inclusion for the majority of its population. The current efforts on increasing access to money for the poor are a good start on a long journey that may take decades to complete. My readers who are interested in helping the poor in Pakistan by offering small loans of $25 or more have a choice of many websites to do so, including kiva.org which I have been using. The loans to Pakistani recipients are administered through Asasah, a Kiva partner in the country.
Related Link:
Haq's Musings
Pakistan's Financial Services Sector
Fighting Poverty Through Microfinance
IBA on Entrepreneurship in Pakistan
Floods Dampen Enthusiasm on Pakistan Independence Day
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Here's Express Tribune on a book launch to increase financial literacy in Pakistan:
Blame it on either the absence of institutional support or a lack of eagerness on the part of the academia, the reality remains that business students in Pakistan had so far no textbook on banking and finance that described the complex relationship between the financial system and economic development in Pakistani context.
It was this academic vacuum that made Dr Shakil Faruqi write a two-volume book titled “Financial System and Economic Development – Pakistan,” which was launched at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) on Monday in a ceremony chaired by IBA Dean and Director Dr Ishrat Husain and attended by IBA faculty members, students, economists and many former and current State Bank officials.
Formerly associated with the World Bank, Dr Faruqi has a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He now teaches at the Lahore School of Economics (LSE), which is also the publisher of the two-part book.
Speaking on the occasion, former head of World Bank’s Learning Centre Tariq Hussain termed the book unique because it explained the theory of banking and finance by linking it to its actual application in the economy of Pakistan.
He said the chapters on Islamic finance discussed the issue in a purely academic manner. “It says what Islamic finance is and what it’s not. Also, it does this in an academic, rather than argumentative, way.”
Addressing the ceremony, Dr Faruqi said his students knew about the US Federal Reserve more than they knew about the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) because the textbooks they used were by American authors. Saying that his students often complained finance was a dry subject, Dr Faruqi stated, jokingly, that his task was to make it as interesting as a Bollywood movie.
The first volume of the book has chapters on the financial system, interest rate, financial savings, credit system, Islamic banking, monetary management, etc. The second volume has chapters on the financial market, securities market, assets, yields, returns, trading in derivatives, capital market, long-term debt market, stock market, portfolio financing, etc.
The first and second volumes of the book cost Rs1,900 and Rs1,600, respectively.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/339368/vacuum-filled-textbook-on-banking-and-finance-launched/
Pakistan central bank to boost lending to stimulate economy, reports Bloomberg:
Pakistan’s central bank aims to spur lending to small companies, farming and housing in the next three years to boost growth in an economy where government borrowing has curbed credit and kept interest rates elevated.
“These three areas have to be stimulated and will become engines of growth,” Governor Yaseen Anwar, 60, said in an interview at the State Bank of Pakistan in Karachi on March 2. He forecast the economy will expand by 3 percent to 4 percent in the year ending June.
Anwar has kept the benchmark rate at 12 percent since he was officially made governor in October, refraining from adding to two reductions in 2011 as the nation grapples with the fastest inflation in Asia after Vietnam. He said government borrowing is impeding credit, as insufficient tax collections force Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s administration to turn to central bank funding to finance flood rehabilitation and a war against militants in the northwest.
“The State Bank cannot do much in isolation without the government taking some very basic corrective measures,” said Nasim Beg, executive vice chairman of Arif Habib Investments Ltd. in Karachi, which oversees 35 billion rupees ($385 million) in stocks and bonds. “The government will be likely to go for aggressive populist spending early in this election year and worry about meeting revenue targets later -- more pressures for the governor.”
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Anwar, who worked at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Bank of America Corp. in his 33-year career before joining the State Bank, cited the government’s commitment to “zero borrowings” from the central bank as one of the reasons for reducing rates in July.
“We need attention on the revenue side in terms of tax reform,” Anwar said, adding he thinks the government may meet its collection target of 1.95 trillion rupees in the year ending June 30. The ratio of tax to gross domestic product, which the finance ministry estimates is 9 percent, “has to go up into the teens,” he said.
Only one in 10 Pakistanis pay taxes, limiting the government’s ability to fund a budget deficit that the International Monetary Fund estimates may widen to as much as 7 percent of gross domestic product this year.-----------
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-04/pakistan-s-anwar-plans-lending-boost-to-bolster-economic-growth.html
Here's an excerpt from Express Tribune on rapid growth of mobile banking in Pakistan:
Sharing statistics of SBP, Anwar said value of branchless banking transactions reached Rs79,410 million during the last quarter. Total number of branchless banking accounts have increased to 929,184, he said, while branchless banking deposits have grown to Rs503 million.
SBP introduced branchless banking regulations in 2008. He further said around 80 million branchless banking transactions of Rs300 billion have been executed in Pakistan. “I am expecting a surge in the number of access points to over 50,000 very soon,” he said. Total volume (number) of transactions has jumped to 20.6 million during the October to December 2011, Anwar said. The average number daily transactions has increased to 228,855, he added.
The average size of branchless banking transactions, Anwar said, is Rs3,855 which shows that mobile phone technology and agent-based banking are providing financial services to unbanked poor.
While talking about the benefits of branchless banking, he said, rural customers will no longer be required to travel long distances. He further said a large proportion of population – which is unbanked – has been heavily reliant on cash-based transactions, thus causing a negative impact on documentation of the economy, the tax-base, efficiency of economic transactions, etc.
Representatives of the world’s leading software providers gave detailed presentations and discussed case studies on how mobile banking has succeeded in other emerging as well as developed markets.
Mobile banking is the only way forward, said Mathew Talbot, Senior Vice President, Mobile Commerce Sybase 365 – which was recently acquired by SAP. Pakistan is one of the fastest developing markets for branchless banking in the world, he said, which is why Sybase is here.
Sybase provides technologies to banks, which enable the latter to have full control of their bank accounts and make transactions through mobile device regardless of their location. It creates opportunities for bringing the unbanked and under-banked segments of the society into the financial network.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/350701/pakistan-rated-among-fastest-growing-markets-in-mobile-banking/
Here's an except of a microinsurance report on Pakistan:
Pakistan still needs a sustained effort to raise awareness amongst its people with regard to the benefit of insurance, followed by the delivery of insurance products to the poor. There is also great scope in Pakistan to diversify microinsurance products, for example, crop insurance. Indeed, there is a dire need of agriculture microinsurance: in case of natural calamities farmers have to bear the loss of their crop and face default on credit. The need to cover risk and investments of marginalised farmers is of paramount importance.
Existing microinsurance providers in Pakistan : (alphabetical order)
• AKDN Aga Khan Development Network
• BRSP Balochistan Rural Support Programme
• Development Action for Mobilization and Emancipation (DAMEN)
• Kashf Foundation
• NRSP National Rural Support Programme
• PRSP Punjab Rural Support Programme
• Sindh Agriculture and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organization (SAFWCO)
• SRSO Sindh Rural Support Organization
• SRSP Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP)
• SUNGI Development Foundation
• TRDP Thardeep Rural Development Programme
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In Pakistan, serious efforts for microinsurance at the national level only picked up in the last decade with the advent of Microfinance institutions (MFIs) and a mushrooming growth of NGOs. However, there is still scope for extensive growth in this area. The Government has been doing its part by providing support to the RSPs through the creation of SMEDA (Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority) and recently by the State Bank of Pakistan’s directive to all banks to have at least 20% of their branches in the rural areas. This will open up new avenues to infiltrate financing into crops, livestock and other basic requirements.
The government is also currently working on microfinance policy. It is involved in many social protection programmes, one of which is Benazir Income Support Programme (a cash grant programme being implemented nationwide and aiming to cover 3.5 million women during its first round).
The Planning Commission is also committed to organising roundtables workshops for gathering the viewpoints and perspectives of various experts and professionals for the development of the microinsurance policy.
Besides, the Asian development Bank (ADB) is also playing an important role in Pakistan in the microinsurance sector. From 2001-2008, the ADB had a $150 million Microfinance Sector Development Programme which included $80 million for on-lending, $40 million for social development and $20 million for community infrastructure. A more recent programme from 2006-2008 has been improving access to financial services of which one is microinsurance. A $20 million grant has been given to the Government by the ADB which will be administered through the State Bank of Pakistan over the next 2 decades.
The RSPN-Adamjee Health Microinsurance Model
The Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN) was registered in 2001 under Pakistan’s Companies Ordinance (1984) as a non-profit company by the Rural Support Programmes (RSPs) of Pakistan. RSPN is a network of ten RSPs. The RSPs involve poor communities, mainly but not exclusively rural, in improved management and delivery of basic services through a process of social mobilization. RSPN is a strategic platform for the RSPs, providing them with capacity building support and assisting them in policy advocacy and donor linkages.
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The Adamjee-RSPN partnership started in 2005 – the very first health microinsurance scheme in Pakistan, providing hospitalisation and accident insurance to low-income rural population across the country who have organised themselves into community organisations (COs) fostered by the RSPs.
http://www.socialsecurityextension.org/gimi/gess/ShowWiki.do?wid=752
Telenor to offer agri info to farers via its wireless telephone network, reports newstribe:
Telenor Pakistan, in partnership with the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, will provide agriculture and livestock information to farmers in the province.
In addition, farmers will be offered the Easypaisa platform to trade in agricultural commodities. Information will be provided via push SMS, voice recordings and small community gatherings.
The aim is to benefit farmers — especially small farmers — by providing them relevant and timely information, and the ability to carry out related mobile transactions on their handsets. All information will be provided by the Government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa while Telenor Pakistan will act as the distribution channel of the information. A pilot project will initially be run in Mardan district.
To mark the occasion an MoU signing ceremony was arranged at a local hotel. Arbab Muhammad Ayub Jan, Minister for Agriculture, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was the chief guest. The MoU was signed by Roar Bjaerum, Vice President Financial Services, Telenor Pakistan and Arbab Muhammad Ayub Jan, Minister for Agriculture, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Roar Bjaerum, in his comments, highlighted the benefits the project will bring to the farmers of the province. “We will provide farmers the information they need to grow better crops and to raise hardy livestock. By doing so, we want to help them make more informed decisions when it comes to agriculture and livestock planning and trading. This way we hope to contribute toward alleviating poverty and empowering farmers economically. We will also offer mobile branchless banking solutions to enable farmers to carry out transactions right on their mobile phones through Easypaisa.”
Ayub Jan in his remarks spoke about the partnership between Telenor Pakistan and the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Agriculture, Livestock and Cooperative Department (ALCD). He said: “The Department has the mandate of promoting the interests of agriculture and livestock farmers in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It has undertaken various initiatives to modernize the sector, and to augment the dissemination of relevant information to farmers to help increase production. Our partnership with Telenor Pakistan is another step in this direction. We are ready to offer all the support it needs to achieve its goals for this project.”
Small farmers, living in far-flung areas, are usually isolated from market information which may help them in dealing with commodity whole sellers (‘beopari’ and ‘arthis). They also do not have immediate access to information about best practices in agriculture and livestock rearing.
Telenor Pakistan’s project will help farmers in getting the information they need to increase yield through access to best quality commodities, latest agri trends, information on judicious use of pesticides and fertilizers, best breed of livestock, new methods of disease control, and quality feed and fodder.
http://www.thenewstribe.com/2012/04/18/telenor-to-partner-with-kp-to-provide-agri-information-to-farmers/
Citibank Pakistan recognized for corporate responsibility, reports Pak Observer:
Islamabad—Citi Pakistan has been awarded the ‘Best Community Program’ Award for its pioneering work in microfinance and vocational training at the International CSR Awards 2012. This award comes on the heels of two global awards that Citi Pakistan received at the Global CSR Summit and at the Asian CSR Awards in 2011, for its corporate citizenship initiatives in Pakistan. The bank has been focusing its programs on microentrepreneurship for vulnerable groups, including helping female entrepreneurs set up businesses. This is evidenced through the Citi Microentrepreneurship Awards (CMA) program which has been run in association with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) for the past (8) years through an annual grant provided by the Citi Foundation.
Now in 28 countries, CMA promotes the effective role that individual microentrepeneurs have made to the economic sustainability of their families as well as their communities. This year also marks the completion of Citi’s flood relief efforts in Pakistan to provide reconstruction and rehabilitation for affectees of the 2010-11 disaster. ‘This award is a solid recognition of our commitment to responsible finance in the country, particularly through meaningful microfinance and income-generation programs,’ said Aliuddin Ahmed, Acting Citi Country Officer for Pakistan. ‘Our community projects in Pakistan aim to create sustainable small-scale businesses with clear and measurable objectives and good process tools attached to all our social responsibility initiatives.’
The bank has had a continuous presence in Pakistan over the last 50 years and remains fully committed to serving its corporate clients and retail customers in the country, as well as fulfilling its role as a responsible corporate citizen. As it marks its 200thanniversary this year, Citi is considered to be the world’s global bank and a key partner-in-progress by public sector entities, top corporations and MNCs that operate in Pakistan and elsewhere in the region.
http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=153685
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