Looks like a growing banking crises in Afghanistan, page 1

privacy

Pages:
ATS Members have flagged this thread 2 times

Topic started on 5-9-2010 @ 12:27 AM by leo123

www.nytimes.com...

Allegations of corrupt loans, apparently.

===

"KABUL, Afghanistan — In a bid to fend off the threat of a nationwide financial crisis, the Afghan government scrambled to shore up Afghanistan’s largest bank on Saturday after lines of frantic depositors mobbed the bank for a third day.

The efforts, which an Afghan official said could include the injection of Afghan government funds into the privately owned Kabul Bank, are meant to head off the run on the bank by its customers, who have withdrawn more than $200 million in the past few days amid fears of a wider economic collapse.

Officials said the Afghan government had not decided whether it needed to bail out the bank. But the Afghan Central Bank has pulled in funds from abroad, including $300 million that had been held in the United States Federal Reserve Bank, to have money on hand to guarantee the bank’s liquidity, American officials said.

A small team of advisers from the United States Treasury Department was in Kabul providing technical assistance, but American officials said no United States funds would be involved in the effort to rescue the bank."

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 12:33 AM by anglodemonicmatrix

You dont get a run on banks without a good reason or good rumour I wonder what Kabul residents are worried about.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 12:45 AM by leo123

Originally posted by anglodemonicmatrix
You dont get a run on banks without a good reason or good rumour I wonder what Kabul residents are worried about.

This seems to be at the heart of it.

The panic began last week when the Central Bank ousted the bank’s chairman and the chief executive officer, after discovering that the bank had lent hundreds of millions of dollars to allies of President Hamid Karzai and poured money into risky real estate investments in Dubai.

The crisis threatened to undermine confidence in Afghanistan’s fledgling financial system, which was built under American guidance after the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001. Among the clients of the bank is the government, which pays the salaries of about 250,000 public employees through the bank, including those of security officials and the military.

The bank, whose major shareholders include a brother of Mr. Karzai and a brother of the first vice president, helped finance the president’s election campaign last year and lent luxury apartments in Dubai rent-free to well-placed officials. Those connections helped shield the bank from scrutiny, officials said.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 01:01 AM by anglodemonicmatrix

reply to post by leo123

Run by Karzai crime inc yes that would explain it,hope they still have money for all those security and police personnel.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 02:05 AM by boondock-saint

already posted

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 03:01 AM by leo123

Originally posted by boondock-saint
already posted

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thx, boondock-saint

Looks like this bank run is gaining steam.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 03:12 AM by leo123

www.businessinsider.com...

more:

Afghans continued pulling money from their country's largest bank Saturday, despite assurances from top officials that the lender, which has deep ties to the administration of President Hamid Karzai, was financially secure.

Hours after dozens of branches of Kabul Bank closed following the first business day since the Islamic weekend, there was no word from Afghanistan's central bank or the lender's management on how much money had been withdrawn Saturday.

...

It isn't clear if Kabul Bank's assets—mostly loans and property—are easily recoverable. If the pace of withdrawals hasn't slowed, the bank could run out of cash in the next few days, despite its relatively large cash reserves.

U.S. officials fear that even the hint of failure at Kabul Bank, the largest of Afghanistan's 10 private banks, could prove dangerously destabilizing. More than a quarter of a million soldiers, police and teachers are paid their salaries through the bank, and the Afghan government keeps many of its accounts there.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 03:15 AM by leo123

U.S. officials fear that even the hint of failure at Kabul Bank, the largest of Afghanistan's 10 private banks, could prove dangerously destabilizing. More than a quarter of a million soldiers, police and teachers are paid their salaries through the bank, and the Afghan government keeps many of its accounts there.

This to me is the key - they would all revolt if the bank went down and they couldn't access their wages.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 03:47 AM by dfens

Originally posted by leo123

This to me is the key - they would all revolt if the bank went down and they couldn't access their wages.

All the more reason to keep American troops stationed there. The corruption just seems so flagrant. Every move over there is for political gain. The puppet is still in place, but power grip isn't as tight, so we get an engineered crisis that the US will insist on fixing because we can't have instability in Afghanistan. What a joke. Most likely the work of the jackals(economic hitmen).

Sometimes I think that Iraq/Afghanistan is just practice. Of course its way deeper than that. The heroin, oil, minerals, protection racket is just too much to leave alone. I would much rather hear those truths than the official story of why we are there. Its just a war for profit, yet it benefits so few.

The country could implode and it would hurt only junkies, big pharma, and others who staked their political and private careers on what amounts to free resources. No matter who gets screwed in the process.

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 04:42 AM by 19872012

Wait a second.

There's banks in Afghanistan!!???

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 04:02 PM by turbokid

Originally posted by leo123

A small team of advisers from the United States Treasury Department was in Kabul providing technical assistance

haha.. classic.
since they are soooo good at money management, right?

reply posted on 5-9-2010 @ 08:01 PM by Rockpuck

reply to post by leo123

Wow, I'm surprised that much money is even in Afghanistan honestly lol.. and I would think of all the problems in the country, a bank run on one privately owned bank is the least of their worries. Let it collapse, let some other Afghany have a shot at it. That's what Capitalism is supposed to be about.

reply posted on 6-9-2010 @ 01:21 AM by Bhadhidar

If the Bank collapses, it is feared that the (US puppet) government could collapse as well.

That could result in a populist surge of support for the return of the Taliban.

If the Taliban were to return, it is unlikely that they would, considering how the US has dealt with them over the last "War On Terror" years, be very eager to co-operate with the US in support of US interests in Afaghanistan vis-a-vis energy projects and containment of Iran.

A big Black Eye for the US, which can't handle too many more international blows to its prestige.

As Shakespear wrote : "Tis a minor wound. Niether too deep, nor too long. But T'will serve, T'will serve..."

Pages: ^^TOP^^