ABHI Microfinance Bank IPO Prices at Rs15.50 After Strong Demand

ABHI Microfinance Bank, the lender run by Pakistani fintech ABHI, priced its initial public offering on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) at Rs15.50 a share on Friday, 6 November 2026, after two days of book building. Institutional, corporate and wealthy investors bid for about 59% more shares than were on offer. The bank is raising money to repair its capital base and keep growing its loan book, and it is one of the few Pakistani startup-backed companies to go to the public market.

What happened in the ABHI IPO book building?

Book building ran on 5 and 6 November using a Dutch auction, where investors bid both a price and a quantity. The floor price was Rs15, and bids could push the price up by as much as 50%, to Rs22.50.

Demand built over the two days. At the end of day one, bids covered 79.07 million shares, or about 80% of the 99 million shares offered to institutions, companies and high-net-worth investors, and the price stayed at the floor, Business Recorder reported. By the close on Friday, bids had reached 157.17 million shares and the strike price settled at Rs15.50, 3.33% above the floor.

At that price, the book-building portion raised about Rs1.53 billion.

Key details of the offer

• Shares on offer: 132 million ordinary shares with a par value of Rs10, equal to 13.65% of the bank’s paid-up capital after listing.
• Split: 99 million shares (75%) through book building and 33 million shares (25%) for retail investors at the strike price.
• Retail subscription: 12 and 13 November 2026.
• Expected total: If the retail portion is taken up at Rs15.50, it adds about Rs511.5 million, for a total of roughly Rs2.05 billion, according to Business Recorder.
• Advisers: Arif Habib Limited, Topline Securities and Growth Securities are joint lead managers, and the retail portion is fully underwritten, with Dawood Equities also among the underwriters.

In US dollar terms, the bank had said it was targeting between about $7.2 million and $10.8 million, depending on the final price, Arab News reported.

Who is ABHI?

ABHI was founded in 2021 and is best known for earned wage access, which lets employees draw part of their salary before payday. It serves customers in Pakistan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh. In February 2025 it launched ABHI Microfinance Bank together with TPL Corp.

According to the offer details reported by TechJuice, ABHI (Private) Limited owns 73.73% of the bank and TPL Corp owns the remaining 26.27%.

The bank now operates more than 114 branches in over 108 cities, alongside branchless and digital channels. Its products include gold-backed loans, digital and salary-backed lending, advance salary, merchant financing, and small business loans for farming and livestock.

In a company release for the first quarter of 2026, the bank reported unaudited revenue of Rs4.874 billion, up from Rs2.600 billion a year earlier, and deposits of Rs69.216 billion at 31 March 2026.

Why does the bank need the money?

Capital is the core issue. The prospectus puts the bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR), a measure of how much capital a bank holds against its risk-weighted assets, at negative 6.26% on 30 June 2026. The State Bank of Pakistan requires microfinance banks to hold at least 15%.

The bank projects that the IPO money and retained profits will lift its CAR to 7.31% by the end of 2026 and 17.77% by the end of 2027. That would take it “above the SBP-prescribed minimum,” according to the prospectus quoted by Business Recorder. The bank also told investors that its projected profits over the next two years should support its capital position.

ABHI said in a statement that the proceeds “will primarily be used to expand the bank’s loan portfolio” and strengthen its capital base.

Why it matters for Pakistani startups

Venture funding in Pakistan has been thin in 2026. TechJuice, citing an i2i Ventures report, said startups raised $133.7 million across 10 deals in the first nine months of the year, with one company, Fasset, accounting for most of the third-quarter total. Against that backdrop, a fintech-backed lender raising local equity on the PSX is a notable alternative route to capital.

The deal also lands as the market’s retail base grows quickly. The PSX added more than 218,000 investors in the first 10 months of 2026; see our report on the PSX investor base hitting a record.

What happens next?

The retail offer opens on 12 November and closes on 13 November, at the Rs15.50 strike price. After that, the shares are due to list on the PSX main board; a first trading date has not yet been announced in the reports we reviewed. Investors will then watch whether the bank can deliver on its capital and profit projections through 2027.