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Zafar Masud

Zafar Masud

Dawn

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Same Banks, Different Field

Same Banks, Different Field

Every few months a chart makes the rounds.  It shows bank credit to the private sector as a share of GDP: Pakistan at about 11%, Sri Lanka at 30%,...

01.10.2026 10

Pakistan Today Profit

Zafar Masud

Documented houses, undocumented borrowers

Documented houses, undocumented borrowers

For most of Pakistan’s independent history, its mortgage market has been a curiosity — an entire asset class that existed on paper but barely...

01.10.2026 30

Pakistan Today Profit

Zafar Masud

Invisible risks

Invisible risks

As mobile banking grows, so does the attack surface.

26.09.2026 90

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Beyond arithmetic

Rising poverty estimates amid almost continuous headline growth are not a paradox; they are the measurement gap made visible.

29.07.2026 90

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Making every rupee compound

No rupee in Pakistan truly compounds. We accumulate without amplifying.

08.07.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Cheap currency, costly illusion

Fix the structural levers, and the currency becomes a supporting instrument.

01.07.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Missing middle

Pakistan’s research output remains trapped on paper.

12.06.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Five million SMEs; 2pc banked

The very conditions that would make an SME bankable are those that it cannot afford to meet — precisely because it is not bankable.

23.05.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Vietnam moment?

The opportunity we have now is to institutionalise the stabilisation.

30.04.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

Affordable housing

Pakistan faces a substantial economy housing shortfall, estimated at 10m units, with an annual addition of around 350,000 units.

25.03.2026 150

Dawn

Zafar Masud

OPINION: The age of digital currencies—II

Pakistan is pivoting towards a proactive regulatory framework for digital assets, looking to unlock the immense value of this growing asset class. The...

30.01.2026 70

Business Recorder

Zafar Masud

Bonding for impact

To see the PSIB as merely a financial instrument would be to miss its broader significance.

26.01.2026 100

Dawn

Zafar Masud

EXHIBITION: THE ART OF SLEEP

A museum in Paris has devoted an entire exhibition to a rather unusual subject

30.11.2025 60

Dawn (Magazines)

Zafar Masud

EXHIBITION: AT HOME WITH CEZANNE

A city in the south of France paid tribute to its most influential artist

19.10.2025 40

Dawn (Magazines)

Zafar Masud

EXHIBITION: MATISSE'S MUSE

An exhibition in Paris sheds light on a subject Henri Matisse continuously depicted in his works — his daughter

24.08.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Zafar Masud

EXHIBITION: THE FATHER OF IMPRESSIONISM

The works of Eugene Boudin, the trailblazer who inspired Claude Monet, are currently being celebrated at a museum in Paris

06.07.2025 50

Dawn (Magazines)

Zafar Masud