Key Takeaways
- The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has launched the BoE 2026 policy to further reduce the gender gap in financial inclusion.
- The policy aims to strengthen women’s representation and digital access to financial services, and boost their entrepreneurship.
- SBP won the Policy Achievement Award for Gender Inclusive Finance 2026 by Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI).
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has launched the second edition of its Banking on Equality (BoE) policy, titled BoE 2026, with the aim of further reducing the gender gap and advancing women’s financial inclusion in Pakistan.
This policy builds upon the success of the previous BoE initiative, which was first of its kind in the country and aimed to reduce the growing gender gap in financial inclusion and make the banking industry more women-friendly.
Since the implementation of the BoE Policy in 2021, the overall gender gap in financial inclusion has narrowed from 39 percent to 29 percent, and banks have inducted over 17,500 women, increasing the ratio of women staff from 13 percent to 17 percent.
The BoE 2026 policy introduces enhanced actions and targets to strengthen women’s representation and retention in the financial sector, expand women’s digital access to financial services, boost women’s entrepreneurship and financial literacy, and enhance the use of gender disaggregated data for monitoring and outreach.
Key features of the BoE 2026 include targets for women’s ratio in hiring, customer outreach, and branchless banking agents, as well as instructions for digitalising women’s access to accounts and payment services through targeted digital on-boarding drives, simplified women-centric digital accounts, and promoting digital payments for women-led businesses.
To improve women’s access to financial services, the policy encourages banks to introduce day care facilities for working mothers and have career progression policies in place to advance mid-career women into leadership roles.
The policy also aims to boost financing to women-owned/led micro, small, and medium enterprises by improving the share of women borrowers across key financing segments, embedding a gender lens in credit planning, and introducing simplified and specialised financing products.
Furthermore, the policy focuses on improving women’s entrepreneurship and financial literacy to provide a viable pathway for women’s participation in the financial system.
To ensure the policy’s smooth implementation, SBP will implement a robust monitoring and evaluation framework, quarterly data reporting, and regular mystery shopping exercises.
The BoE 2026 has been finalised after extensive consultations with international and local stakeholders, and SBP recently won the prestigious Policy Achievement Award for Gender Inclusive Finance 2026 by Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI).
