Brac
“Can BRAC Bank become Bangladesh's dominant digital-first SME lender by embedding instant credit into the workflows of marginal small businesses that traditional banking has historically excluded?”
BRAC Bank was founded in 2001 as a commercial bank in Bangladesh with a core mission of SME financing and financial inclusion. Over two decades it built a broad retail and SME banking franchise, before pivoting toward digital delivery in the mid-2020s. The launch of Shafollo e-loan in 2025 — Bangladesh's first instant paperless SME loan — marked the bank's clearest embedded-finance move, embedding credit directly into mobile-accessible workflows for small traders and grassroots entrepreneurs. The bank is now expanding its digital lending footprint through outreach events, signaling an active push to capture the underserved SME segment with technology-led products rather than branch infrastructure.