November 17, 2006	Friday	Shawwal 24, 1427

KARACHI, Nov 16: A consumer survey titled “Access to Finance Study (A2FS)” is being under taken by the Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the State Bank of Pakistan.

A press release issued by the surveyors stated that following successful privatising and consolidating the financial sector, the government is now focusing on targeted financial initiatives for reaching the poor.

Funding assistance is being provided by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The implementation of the survey is being managed by the Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN). AC Nielsen Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd will conduct the field work, with technical support from FinMark Trust, which is a South Africa-based NGO, with extensive experience of conducting similar financial access surveys (FinScope) across Africa.

The Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) will provide the sample design, thus lending credibility to survey findings.

The press release stated that the survey will gauge the degree of accessibility of financial services to all Pakistanis across the urban and rural landscapes.

The survey spans 10,500 respondents across the four provinces and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and represents the first serious attempt to understand the consumers’ perspectives vis-à-vis access to both formal and informal financial services.