While Pakistan's poverty reduction strategy paper emphasises microfinance as an important development tool, the sector is well on its way to becoming an important part of the country's mainstream banking industry, focusing more on achieving commercial viability and a resulting dilution in the sector's social mission, i e, poverty eradication. This comparative analysis based on the findings from fieldwork conducted during 2010-12 points out that this sector has experienced mission drift and is no longer serving the poorest.