Through the reforms undertaken in last 5 years we have tried to open up the financial sector by promoting and encouraging non-bank financing companies which through leasing, modarabas, mutual funds etc. can reach out to new type of borrowers and savers.
As most of the poor derive their livelihoods from agriculture, SMEs or have no tangible assets, the State Bank of Pakistan is facilitating flow of agriculture credit, SME loaning and microfinance to help them. Four years ago, ZTBL was the only major provider of credit to agriculture. Today, the commercial banks have overtaken ZTBL as the main sources of agriculture credit.