Topic: Capital markets
On the morning of December 8, 2023, I stood on the trading floor of the Pakistan Stock Exchange as the bell rang to open the market. That morning, government Sukuk began trading on the exchange for the first time, with the Prime Minister inaugurating the first trade. It had taken three years of meetings, proposals and patience to get there. When the first trades came through, I remember thinking how simple it looked from the outside, and how much of a country’s economy had to come together to make it happen.
That is the quiet power of capital markets. They are where a nation’s savings meet its ambitions.
What capital markets actually do
Every economy has two groups of people. One has money it does not need today: families saving for retirement, insurers, pension funds, banks. The other has ideas that need money today: a textile mill that wants to modernize, a software company ready to scale, a government building roads and power plants. Capital markets bring these two groups together, openly and at scale.
When this works well, several good things happen at once. Companies grow and hire. Savers share in that growth. Prices are set in public, so everyone can see what a business is worth. And because listed companies must report regularly, governance improves, because a company that answers to thousands of shareholders tends to run itself with more discipline.
What I saw from inside an exchange
I spent nearly seven years at the Pakistan Stock Exchange leading marketing and business development, and before that I helped build the brand and market of the national commodities exchange. Between 2018 and 2025, my team and I brought approximately 90 completed listings and issuances, more than ten a year, with more, still in the pipeline. Each one began with a conversation with a CEO, a CFO or a board who had to be convinced that going public was worth the scrutiny.
What stayed with me was the change in those companies after listing. Founders who had run family businesses for decades began publishing quarterly results, appointing independent directors and explaining their strategy to analysts. Access to capital mattered, but so did the discipline that came with it.
We also worked to widen the doors. A board for small and growth companies gave younger businesses a route to raise expansion capital. A partnership with the Pakistan Software Export Board created a pathway for technology start-ups to list. Exchange-traded funds gave ordinary savers a simple way to own a slice of the whole market. And the Roshan Equity Investment Account let Pakistanis living abroad invest in their home market; it opened more than 10,000 accounts and brought in over USD 38 million initially.
The real barrier is understanding
One finding shaped everything I did afterward. When we asked people why they did not invest, about 60% said they did not understand how to begin. The barrier was knowledge, and knowledge can be built. Once we invested in education, simpler onboarding and better digital tools, investor accounts grew 104% over my tenure, against a historical lower pace.
Why this matters in Texas, and in Pakistan
Now as I see in Texas, a remarkable moment. Dallas is becoming a center of gravity for American capital markets, with a new Texas Stock Exchange and the arrival of NYSE Texas. Texas companies will have more choices about where and how to raise capital, and Texans have a reason to understand markets that are taking shape on their doorstep.
Pakistan, for its part, has shown what a market can do when confidence returns: the KSE-100 index returned 84% in 2024 and drew Bloomberg’s attention as one of the world’s top-performing markets. The next step is breadth: more listed companies, more products and many more ordinary investors sharing in that growth.
The two markets look very different, yet the lesson travels well. A capital market grows strong when companies trust it enough to list and people understand it well enough to invest. Both depend on transparency, and both depend on education.
A closing thought
When I think back to that bell on the trading floor, I think less about the ceremony and more about the people it connected: a saver in Karachi, an overseas worker in Dubai, a founder in Lahore, a pension fund in London. Capital markets, at their best, give each of them a stake in the same future.
What would help more people in your community feel confident about investing? I would like to hear your view.