ISLAMABAD: Highlighting data gaps hampering decision-making, the government on Wednesday said its four top-priority sectors — housing, SMEs, agriculture and electric vehicles — received about Rs222 billion in financing during the July-September quarter of 2026-27.
Following the fifth meeting of the Access to Finance Steering Committee, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said in an official statement that the meeting “discussed the need to improve data availability and information-sharing to support responsible lending and better risk assessment”.
The minister emphasised that data should be used with appropriate safeguards and clear purpose limitations, while ensuring that financial institutions have access to the information required to assess borrowers and expand cash-flow-based lending.
He directed that the committee’s focus should increasingly remain on implementation, measurable outcomes and follow-up actions, with progress on the sub-committees’ decisions and recommendations to be systematically tracked.
The meeting noted that in the first quarter of FY27, outstanding SME loans rose by Rs23bn to Rs1.137 trillion, while the number of borrowers increased by over 25,000 to about 350,862.
The minister called for further acceleration to stay aligned with the government’s medium-term objective of expanding SME financing to Rs2tr and increasing the number of borrowers to 775,000 by June 30, 2028, through an ecosystem-wide approach that includes commercial banks, microfinance institutions, and other financial service providers.
Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2026
