The government has requested the World Bank for restructuring and extending the $137 million Pakistan Financial Inclusion and Infrastructure Project aimed at increasing access and usage of digital payments and other financial services.
According to the official documents, the project has experienced delays with implementation of planned payment system upgrades and operationalization of the risk sharing facility in support of bank lending to small and medium enterprises (SME) which offer opportunities for additional project impact.
In November 2022, the government requested to restructure and extend the project. Given the acute impact of the floods of 2022 and mitigation efforts of Covid-19 on the microfinance sector, it was requested that the RSF/CDNS funds be reallocated to the Line of Credit (LoC).
The LoC would prioritize those in the flood impacted areas, with a revised operations manual.