ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has approved a project worth $137 million to help the poorest and vulnerable people in Pakistan, especially women, who do not have access to digital banking and financial services.

According to the World Bank’s resident mission in Islamabad, the ‘financial inclusion and infrastructure project’ will upgrade the payment systems to ensure affordable and faster payment services.

The project, approved on Thursday, is designed to implement the ‘National Financial Inclusion Strategy’. It will improve access to financial and banking services for 50 per cent of the adult population — half of which will be women — across the country by 2020. The inclusion project will boost the private sector credits to small and medium businesses to 15pc, from 7pc in 2015.

The World Bank’s country director for Pakistan, Illango Patchamuthu, said: “Five per cent of the world’s unbanked population lives in Pakistan. We need to change this to empower people financially, especially women.”

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2017