Banking sector was endeavouring to ensure gender parity with a focus on mainstreaming female entrepreneurs particularly those belonging to the SME sector. This was stated by Muhammad Ashraf Khan, Director General State Bank of Pakistan – Banking Services Corporation (SBP-BSC) Karachi while addressing a one-day Thematic Programme on “SME Asaan Finance Scheme (SAAF) with a special focus on Women Entrepreneurs” in a local hotel on Thursday. He said that being a regulator SBP had taken fundamental steps to facilitate the female entrepreneurs. “The SME sector is a major challenge which remained deprived of finances and thus failed to play its proactive role in national progress and prosperity”, he added. “We arranged a survey through World Bank to resolve problems being confronted by the SME sector. This study identified financial literacy as major handicap. Hence, we started work on promotion of financial literacy and this facility is provided to one million people with equal representation by the females”, he said. He said, “There are 16000 bank branches across the country but we cannot provide this facility in every nook and corner of the country. Hence, Asaan Mobile Account was introduced. Now we are heading towards digital banking”. He said that banking industry was one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. “We have introduced “Raast” programme for the maximum payments through digital system. This program is still under the phase of awareness”, he added. He said that corona lockdown had further enhanced the importance of digital banking as it gave additional features of transparency as no one could delay in the approval of loan applications without any cogent reason. He said the major issue of SME sector was lack of documentation and we tried to accept their self-audited documents for the approval of loan applications. He said that 8 banks had been authorized to disburse collateral-free loans with a total portfolio of Rs126.3b.