These days almost everyone in Pakistan owns a Smartphone, yet the stock market investor base is too low especially comparing to regional countries (for the case of Pakistan it is just 0.13 percent of Pakistan’s population that invest in the stock market, compared with 16 percent in China and 9.5 percent in India) – this shows Pakistan’s digital inclusion puzzle. People are digitally connected but remain financially excluded especially from digital participation such as investing in the stock market. All this means that access to technology alone does not automatically translate into financial inclusion.

The teledensity (number of telephone connections per 100 people) was just 2.8 percent in 2000 showing abysmally low mobile adoption and scant digital access. However, the teldensity rose to 81.3 percent by 2025, with smartphones widely used across rural and urban areas of the country. This rapid digital penetration, however, did not metalize into stock market trading participation - with only 220,000 active retail investor accounts (although an increase of more than 60,000 investors was observed during 2025, driven by the strong performance of the stock market, only 5–10 percent of this........

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