Financial inclusion index rises to 59.5, led by usage rather than access
The State Bank credits Raast merchant onboarding, digital banks and account opening drives for a 1.4 point gain on 2024, the index's first annual update.
The State Bank of Pakistan said on 7 October that its Pakistan Financial Inclusion Index stood at 59.5 for 2025, up from 58.1 for 2024. It is the first update since the central bank launched the index on 31 December 2025.
In a one page release, the bank said the rise was largely driven by the Usage sub index, followed by Access and Quality. It credited the digital measures under its National Financial Inclusion Strategy for 2024 to 2028: Raast merchant onboarding and the wider payment system, the introduction of digital banks, and account opening drives. Strong consumer orientation and financial literacy, it added, reinforced the gains. The release gives no sub index scores for 2025, so the 1.4 point gain cannot yet be split beyond the order of the three components.
How the index is built
The index draws on 69 indicators covering banking, non bank and payment services. They span infrastructure, how financial products are used, and the quality of service. Each indicator is benchmarked against a target value that the State Bank aims to reach by 2030.
The payments data points the same way
A day earlier the bank published its annual payment systems review, which supplies some of the activity behind a rising usage score. It records 3.6 million merchants registered on Raast's merchant alias and 3.8 million QR enabled merchants at the end of June 2026, up from 1.1 million a year before. Digital channels carried 92 percent of retail payments by count, against 88 percent the year before. Mashreq Bank Pakistan and Raqami Islamic Digital Bank were both declared scheduled banks during the year.
Those numbers describe payments rather than inclusion as such, since an existing account holder paying by QR code is not a new customer entering the system. For fintech founders the index is a benchmark rather than a verdict: it shows the regulator reading growth in usage, the part of the market that wallets, payment apps and merchant tools compete for, as the main source of progress.
The central bank said at launch that it intends to publish the results every year, so the next reading will show whether Access and Quality, the two components that moved less, begin to catch up.
