IslamicFinance.de

On the verge of collapse, Kabul Bank operates in a financial system we would barely recognise. SHANE Warne's post-cricket pursuits and the murky nightmare that is Afghanistan would not appear to be obviously connected. It's a mess, not least because Kabul Bank is the vehicle used to pay Afghan government salaries, mostly the military and police, the very same - and sometimes mutinous - security forces that the US, Australia and other members of the Western alliance trying to keep Afghanistan safe from extremists say they will, eventually, hand their duties to. The head of the country's central bank, a close associate of the ruling Karzai clique, unconvincingly says everything is fine at Kabul Bank and blames the media. Before returning to Kabul to again run the central bank (the Taliban interrupted his first stint in 1996), this particular governor sold carpets in the US.
Sher Khan is a hawala baron. Like Warnie, Sher Khan has quite the profile on world poker tables, appearing in YouTube interviews during big tournaments as ''an Afghan success story''. Asked by his poker profiler if he could change anything in the world, Sher Khan said ''poverty''. It's just as well most of his suddenly poverty-stricken depositors banging down the doors of his bank don't have internet access.