The government has launched the Capital Market Development Fund (CMDF) to teach Pakistanis how to invest. Less than 1% of the population invests in stocks or bonds currently. The goal is to reach 2.5 million investors soon. The fund starts with Rs. 120 million and will be funded by 1% of the annual revenue of major financial institutions.
On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, Pakistan’s top financial institutions joined hands to launch the Capital Market Development Fund (CMDF). This project is supervised by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).
Its main job is to move Pakistan away from just keeping money in banks and instead encourage people to invest in the stock market and bonds. SECP Chairman Dr. Kabir Ahmed Sidhu announced that regulators are now targeting an investor base of 2.5 million people in the next few years.
The fund will focus on making it easier for common citizens to understand how to grow their savings through the “Capital Market.”
Who is Involved?
The agreement was signed by five major organizations.
- Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX)
- Central Depository Company (CDC)
- National Clearing Company (NCCPL)
- Pakistan Mercantile Exchange (PMX)
- Institute of Financial Markets (IFMP)
The project is being initially seeded with Rs 120 million ($430,000) to get things moving. To keep the fund running long-term, these institutions will contribute 1% of their annual earnings to it.
The 4 Main Goals of the Fund
Dr. Mobashar Sadik, chief executive of the IFMP, said the CMDF is built on four “pillars” to change how Pakistanis think about money:
- Financial Literacy: Teaching people how the stock market works and the risks/rewards involved.
- Retail Participation: Breaking the “bank dominance” by allowing small investors to fund national infrastructure and private businesses.
- Financial Inclusion: Especially targeting youth, women, and residents of smaller cities who are usually left out
- Modernizing the System: Improving the technology and plumbing of the market to handle millions of new users.
Why Is This Happening Now?
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb explained that Pakistan needs to be “self sufficient.” Instead of always looking for loans from other countries or banks, the government wants to use the country’s own savings.
There is already good news: 24,000 new investors joined the market in April 2026 alone. To keep this going, the SECP is making the “paperwork” (like KYC and AML checks) much simpler so citizens can open an investment account digitally from their phones without any difficulty.
