Bank Accounts Likely To Reach the 50 Million Mark in 2018

Pakistan’s banking industry is likely to reach the 50 million bank account milestone this year with as public’s demand financial needs has increased.

According to statistics from State Bank of Pakistan, the number of banks accounts reached 49 million by the end of 2017, which includes saving and current accounts of different categories. The accounts belong to commercial banks and microfinance banks including the branchless banking sector.

The share of commercial banks stands at 32 percent with 16 million shares in the banking industry. It is because of the fact that opening a bank account is too complicated for a majority of the public.

A couple of years ago, The central bank introduced various measures to ease the requirements for banks in order to facilitate the public. It launched Asaan accounts for all commercial banks in order to increase the bank accounts. Little has been done by the central bank to promote Islamic Banking as a majority of the experts said it could have significantly increased bank accounts in the country.

Besides, the penetration of banking industry is limited in Pakistan with a limited number branches – about 17,749 – across the country.

A major share of the bank accounts comprises of banks and microfinance banks, mainly through their m-wallet accounts which increased to more than 33 million.

Since the inception of branchless banking in Pakistan, customers are encouraged to open m-wallet accounts via branchless banking, hence the results are overwhelmingly strong. The utility of these m-wallet accounts is limited but the central bank is gradually enhancing the scope of utility with checks and balances. Branchless banking companies often allure public to open bank accounts through discounts, especially on the sales occasions like Blessed or Big Friday.


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Branchless banking, backed by microfinance banks, has a wider base of agent network, though branches operating under microfinance banks are less than 1,000. Branchless banking agents have proved as catalysts to increase the number of accounts in the country.

SBP data said that the number of shared branchless banking agents has reached 420,107 with active agent base standing at 181,377.

A study showed that only 16 percent of the population of Pakistan does have access to bank accounts. The figures were released two years ago, but a majority of the bankers said the position is still the same as the number of bank accounts only grew with the size of the population.



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