KARACHI: Including women is not a matter of fairness but a powerful driver of growth, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmad said at Pakistan Women Entrepreneurship Day 2025.

Women’s financial inclusion, he noted, has risen to 52 per cent. “We have succeeded in narrowing the gender gap from 47pc in 2018 to 30pc in 2025,” he added, with more than 17.6 million new women-owned bank accounts opened since 2021.

Between November 2024 and October 2025 alone, over 974,000 loans amounting to Rs230.3 billion were disbursed under the government’s push to expand women’s access to finance. Yet 93pc of these loans fall under microfinance, showing that most women remain concentrated in micro- and entry-level........

© Dawn Business