The Women Entrepreneurship (WE) Finance Code is an international collaborative partnership to close global financing gaps for women entrepreneurs. The Code was launched by World Bank Group in 2023, formed through 14 governments and 8 multilateral development agencies such as World Bank (WB) Asian Development Bank (ADB) GIZ, EBRD, IBD, etc.
The WE Finance Code aims to:

1. Increase the number of financial institutions around the world that are disclosing their level of funding to Women Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (WMSMEs),
2. Create incentives, transparency, and accountability to close the gender gap,
3. Contribute to the economic empowerment and resilience of women around the world in a systematic and high-impact way.

Membership to the WE Finance Code requires regulators to pledge for endorsing the goal to close financing gaps faced by WMSMEs and commit to taking action in following three areas:

1. Leadership: Designate a senior leader to champion the organizations’ efforts to support WMSMEs, and a National Code Coordinator to rally relevant stakeholders.
2. Data: Monitor and report gender data annually on: i) New MSME loans disbursed, ii) MSME business customers, iii) MSME business loan applications and approvals, iv) MSME business Non-Performing Loans, and v) MSME business deposits & depositors.
3. Action: Expand and introduce new measures/targets to support financing to WMSMEs.

Currently, regulators/central banks of 18 countries have signed and launched the Code in collaboration with their technical partners, including UK, Egypt (EBRD), Sri Lanka & Fiji (ADB), Indonesia (IsDB), Nigeria (WB), Tajikstan and Uzbekistan (EBRD).

Pakistan signed the Code in February 2025 and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) serves as the WE Finance Code Anchor for the industry. In Pakistan’s case, Asian Development Bank (ADB) is the technical partner with support from national and international Code consultants.

SBP is leading the movement in Pakistan for improving women access to finance and the Banking on Equality policy (BOE) is the shining example of SBP’s commitment in this regard. However, taking in the specific bottlenecks women are facing in accessing finance, both at demand and supply side, it is imperative to onboard all the stakeholders including regulators, federal and provincial governments, banking sector, private sector entities, multilaterals, women chambers, and academia, to further improve financing to Women-owned Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (WMSME). As the signatory and champion of the WE Finance Code implementation in Pakistan, SBP will be able to rally stakeholders to close persisting lacunas in WMSME financing, and support Pakistan’s banking industry through public-private coalitions in various targeted areas of intervention.

Through the code implementation, SBP can facilitate banking industry stakeholders on the following areas through our technical partner:

1. Build their capacity to define business cases for women customers, improve data analytics for WMSME customers, and develop appropriate business models for serving the various sub-segments within the women market.
2. Strengthen collection, quality and usage of WMSME data, and leverage technical advisory and international best practices to develop Women Financial Inclusion data dashboard and other data analytics tools for enhanced policy making.
3. Rally national ecosystem around unified cause of supporting WMSMEs.
4. Get access to technical assistance, research, knowledge and data on financial inclusion and women’s entrepreneurship.
5. Engage with other Code participants including development banks, policy makers, and financial service providers in peer learning forums and events.

1. Financial Service Providers (FSPs)
2. Regulators
3. Development partners and other financial ecosystem players

To join the code, FSPs have to sign and send a letter of intent to SBP and the We-Fi Secretariat, with a pledge to close financing gaps faced by WMSMEs, and commit to taking actions in the following three areas:

1. Leadership: Designate a senior leader at the FSP to champion the organizations’ efforts to support women led businesses.
2. Data: Work to expand the availability and use of supply-side data on the level of financing provided to women-led firms, including a commonly agreed set of indicators (mentioned in Point 6). Each institution will also agree to make this commitment public and report on these commitments annually for inclusion in the Global WE Finance Code annual reports.
3. Action: Expand and introduce new measures/targets to support financing to WMSMEs .

Moreover, membership to the WE Finance code also requires FSPs to adopt the Code National Charter (to be launched in Q1 FY26) which will cover the objectives and roadmap of WE Finance Code implementation in Pakistan.

There is no on-boarding or subscription fee for becoming a WE Finance Code signatory.

The FSP’s designated senior leader for WE Finance Code should be serving as the Group Head Retail Banking or a similar senior role.  

As a global minimum requirement, the following core Indicators are required to be reported annually on sex-disaggregated basis:

1. MSME business customers (#)
2. MSME business outstanding loans (# & $)
3. MSME business loan applications and approvals (# & $)
4. MSME business Non-Performing Loans (%)
5. MSME business deposits ($) & depositors (#)

Moreover, the following recommended indicators are encouraged to be collected and reported upon to understand the quality of access to WMSMEs (financing conditions) and strengthen the business case:

1. New MSME loans disbursed (#/$)
2. MSME collateralized loans (#/$)
3. MSME short-term loans (#/$)
4. MSME products per customer (#/$)

With the signing onto the WE Finance Code, banks can position themselves as leaders in promoting women's economic empowerment in Pakistan and benefit from new business opportunities and better risk diversification. Adopting the WE Finance Code entails the following advantages for banks:

• Leadership and Recognition: By signalling and spearheading commitment to the WE-Finance Code and becoming advocates for supporting women entrepreneurs/ women-led businesses, FSPs gain national, regional, and global recognition as inclusive finance champions.

• Accountability and Transparency: Leading by example in tracking and utilizing sex-disaggregated data, FSPs can advance best-in-class standards for data collection and management in the finance sector, improving accountability and transparency.

• First-Mover Advantages: As champions to the Code, FSPs gain access to relevant comparable market data for WMSMEs and women entrepreneurs to assess more accurately the WMSME segment revenue potential.

• Network Building and Visibility: Joining the network of WE Finance Code participants can create opportunities for FSPs to connections across the industry, to:
• Showcase their impact in the finance sector, thereby harvesting further reputational gains.
• Access and expand diversified funding sources.
• Gain visibility through dissemination in ADB reporting and case studies.

• Learning and Innovation: The WE Finance Code offers opportunities for benchmarking against other Code partners, learning and innovation, and dissemination of good practices, while also enabling FSPs to better meet the needs of WMSMEs.

The first 10 FSPs that sign the code in CY2025 will be eligible to receive the following need-based support on first come-first serve basis:

• Assessment of gender gaps in FSP’s lending system, processes (including client acquisition and loan appraisal etc.), and lending products to women entrepreneurs.
• International exposure with access to WE Finance Code Community of Champions, and opportunity for knowledge sharing.
• Training program on Code’s implementation, women’s markets segmentation, and lending products to WMSMEs.
• Deployment of technical assistance (TA) to FSPs in areas relevant to Code adoption including:

1. Alignment of women-owned and women-led MSME definitions, gender data gathering and reporting.
2. Portfolio gender segmentation and market research.
3. Development of product or customer value proposition conducive to addressing gender financing gaps.

Once the FSP signs the Code, they will contact the WE Finance Coordinator at SBP and record a request for support. This will be followed up by a scoping workshop for the FSP with SBP and ADB. Based on the discussions, a tailored TA plan will be developed for each FSP.

Currently, there is no public database available specifically for WMSME borrowers. SBP as the WE Finance Code Anchor aims to establish a publicly available sex-disaggregated database across the finance sector, allowing the industry to understand financing gaps, needs and challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

1. Collaboration across the Finance Sector: The WE Finance Code Champion’s network offers a data-driven, multi-stakeholder platform for increasing access to financing for WMSMEs, fostering collaboration and opportunities to synergize sector goals.
2. Harmonized Standards and Practices: The adoption of the WE Finance Code will promote harmonization and standardization of definitions and documentation, leading to consistent and effective approaches to supporting women entrepreneurs. 
3. Developing an inclusive Ecosystem for Women Entrepreneurs: The collaborative approaches and standardization of processes will help align all stakeholders towards creating an inclusive ecosystem that serves women entrepreneurs effectively in a sustainable way.
4. Raising Pakistan’s Banking Sector Revenue: Expanding financial services to women customers may increase banking revenues for Pakistan’s FSPs by $650 Million.²