Apna Microfinance narrows its losses, but continues to bleed money

In Pakistani microfinance, survival is often presented as a growth story in disguise. Apna Microfinance Bank’s 2025 results invite precisely that sort of reading. The bank reported a loss per share of Rs3.84 for calendar year 2025, better than the Rs7.23 loss per share recorded a year earlier. Net advances rose by about Rs2.4 billion to Rs10.56 billion, deposits climbed from Rs25 billion to Rs30 billion, and management told investors that more than 89% of the bank’s net advances were now secured, primarily against gold. It also said the bank had cut its network from more than 100 locations to 71 branches and, as of the end of December, had the lowest cost of deposits in the microfinance sector. Those are not trivial changes. They describe a lender trying, with some urgency, to turn itself from a brittle unsecured-credit story into a tighter, more collateralised one. But they do not yet describe a healthy bank. Cumulative historical losses still stand at roughly Rs15 billion, and the State Bank of Pakistan has already permitted Mobilink Microfinance Bank to conduct due diligence with a view to a possible merger.

The first thing to say about the 2025 numbers is that the income statement finally looks less self-defeating. Mark-up and interest earned rose 12% to Rs3.15 billion, while mark-up and interest expensed fell 25% to Rs3.01 billion. That was enough to drag Apna from a negative net mark-up position of Rs1.19 billion in 2024 into a positive net interest profit of Rs146 million in 2025. Fee and commission income rose 28% to Rs286 million, total non-mark-up income increased 20% to Rs346 million, and net income before operating costs swung to a positive Rs492 million from a loss of Rs898 million the year before. In a business where the cost of funds had previously been crushing the asset yield, that is a significant turn.