Investing

In August 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan referred a genuinely striking case to the FIA: Blink Capital Management, a company that was not some fly-by-night operation running out of a WhatsApp group, but an actual SECP-licensed futures broker and market maker registered with the Pakistan Mercantile Exchange, with a registered office in … Read more

A friend of mine retired from a private textile company after 22 years and received a gratuity payout of just over PKR 4,000,000 in a single deposit. He had spent two decades reading his monthly payslip and understanding exactly what that number meant. He had never in his life had to decide what to do … Read more

A colleague who had never invested a rupee in her life once told me she avoided mutual funds for years because the idea of walking into an AMC branch, filling out forms, and being asked questions she did not know the answers to felt genuinely intimidating. What eventually got her started was not a bank … Read more

After a seven-year effective ban, Pakistan legalized virtual assets in April 2026 through the Virtual Assets Act, creating a new regulator called PVARA. But “legal” and “safe to invest in” are not the same thing as of mid-2026, no crypto exchange has completed full licensing, meaning the consumer protections that exist for PSX stocks or mutual funds simply don’t exist yet for crypto. This guide explains exactly what changed, what’s actually legal today, and the specific risks every Pakistani should understand before treating crypto as a mainstream investment.

Akhuwat Foundation has disbursed millions of interest-free loans since 2001, with repayment rates consistently above 99% — without requiring any collateral beyond a borrower’s own community guarantors. This guide explains how Pakistan’s Islamic microfinance model actually works, from the mosque-based Qarz-e-Hasna disbursement process to a worked example comparing an interest-free loan against a conventional microfinance loan of the same size, plus how to spot the fake Akhuwat schemes circulating on social media.

Almost every investing article in this series has been about growth: building wealth over years, compounding a SIP, picking stocks that will be worth more in the future. This article is about something different. It is about building a portfolio that pays you now, every month or every quarter, without requiring you to sell anything … Read more

An earlier article in this series covered the basics of stock picking: understanding EPS, P/E ratios, dividend yield, and a simple six-step framework for evaluating your first PSX stock. This article goes further. It is for the investor who has bought a few stocks, wants to move beyond surface-level ratios, and is ready to actually … Read more

There are different tax benefits for investors in Pakistan. Most Pakistani taxpayers think about tax planning as an annual scramble in June, gathering receipts and trying to reduce a number that already feels fixed. Very few think about investing itself as a tax strategy, even though several of the most powerful tax-saving tools available to … Read more

An earlier article in this series introduced dollar cost averaging, or rupee cost averaging as it is more accurately called in the Pakistani context, as the strategy of investing a fixed amount at regular intervals regardless of what the market is doing. That article explained the concept of how to use Dollar Cost Averaging to … Read more

A few years back, two close colleagues of mine decided to jump into the stock market during a period of economic uncertainty. They both earned similar salaries, had roughly the same amount in savings, and put their money into equity index funds on the exact same day. Here, I will share with you a practical … Read more