Afghanistan Institute of Banking and Finance(AIBF) Information

The Afghanistan Institute of Banking and Finance (hereafter “Institute”) was established in 2010 to provide education, training, and research to Afghanistan’s banking and financial sector. The Institute has delivered training on a broad range of subjects. In addition, it has established various relationships with regional banking and other financial institutes. From the beginning, the Institute was created as an independent non-profit organization with its own facilities and full-time training and support staff. Most observers would agree that Afghanistan’s banks and microfinance units suffer from critical capacity shortages and must rely heavily on foreign nationals to operate financial institutions. The Afghan financial community also faces substantial challenges related to its participation in global financial markets owing largely to Afghanistan’s reputation as a home to terrorists and those who traffic in illegal currency flows. Clearly, financial institutions have a larger role to play in the economic development of Afghanistan. The overwhelming demand for infrastructure – roads, urban facilities, power, health care, education – suggests that Afghanistan must become proficient in the use of public-private partnerships and other large-scale project financing mechanisms; the absence of capital markets for corporate paper, bonds, and equities; the lack of robust housing finance with its attendant facilities such as appraisal, credit reporting, mortgage insurance, and homeowners’ insurance; the inability to engage international capital markets; the absence of a sophisticated derivatives market to complement the evolving mining, petroleum, and agricultural sectors; and other weaknesses suggest that the Institute should be a valuable resource to Afghanistan in the development of sophisticated financial capacity as well as thought leadership on the issue of how Afghanistan’s financial sector should develop.