On December 4, 2023, Fair Finance Pakistan (FFP) launched its first ever policy assessment of five top commercial banks in Pakistan with the support of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and Profundo.

Titled, Benchmarking the Sustainability Policies of Banks in Pakistan, the policy assessment evaluated Habib Bank Limited, Allied Bank, National Bank of Pakistan, Meezan Bank, and Muslim Commercial Bank across 10 thematic areas in the Fair Finance Guide International (FFGI) Methodology, including climate change, corruption, gender equality, human rights, labor rights, nature, arms, tax, transparency and accountability and financial consumer protection.

According to the report, banks generally scored low on the themes assessed. The highest average scores are for “the themes of financial consumer protection, 4.62 out of 10, corruption, 3.18 out of 10, gender equality, 1.48 out of 10, and transparency and accountability, 1.08 out of 10.  For all the other themes, the average score for the five banks is inferior to 1 out of 10, which reveals a lack of public policies on most of the sustainability topics assessed.”

Access the policy assessment here.