banking dangerously

Deposit or check your account at Standard Chartered bank in Kabul?
Don\'t expect warm and vague treatment.
You have to park at least 20 yards away.
If you do not have the correct identification, the guards outside will not let you pass.
Did we mention the guards waving machine guns?
On the wall around the two.
The building is high and the sign says \"guns are not allowed\"-
Just in case you go too far with your gun.
And then there\'s a metal detector,
A thorough body search like you go to New York at Heathrow Airportbound flight.
Operations in Afghanistan are not for the weak.
But London-
It is a challenge to be based at Standard Chartered Bank.
It has branches in many difficult places. -
Colombia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
However, there are no more demanding conditions than Kabul: power shortages force power outages to occur most of the day;
Everything from door handles to bullet-proof windows must be shipped from Dubai;
The large number of guns left over from the nearly three decades of war has made the city extremely dangerous.
\"Here we feel unsafe to do anything,\" said Joseph silvanas, who drank a cup of green tea the next day and bravely led the bank\'s Kabul operationsfloor office.
\"This is the least safe place for us.
\"All security measures cannot prevent Standard Chartered from losing at least $1 million in armed robbery in January.
The thief attacked a bomb-proof car with money.
It was the bank\'s first robbery, but it was the sixth in Kabul banking since the beginning of last year.
Six people have gone the same way. -
Men in official police uniforms in official police cars
In broad daylight, watching guns ambush off-road vehicles.
The bank suspects insiders.
\"How do others know when the money is shipped? Asked silvanas.
Standard Chartered opened the first of three branches in Kabul in January 2004, the first global bank to enter Afghanistan after the United States. S. -and British-
The Taliban government was overthrown by the army in 2002.
It is not surprising that it is still the only global bank.
In fact, only DHL, Coca-
Coca-Cola, Siemens and Alcatel have arrived in Kabul.
How about Standard Chartered Bank--
75 of the world\'s largest financial institutions with $266 billion in assets-
End in such a market?
This dates back to the Chartered Bank, which was chartered by Queen Victoria Royal in 1853.
Following British colonization, the first branches were opened in Kolkata, Shanghai and Mumbai in 1858 and in Hong Kong and Singapore in 1859.
It funds commodities such as cotton in Mumbai, Indigo in Kolkata and tea, rice in Myanmar, sugar in Java, Sumatran tobacco, cannabis in Manila and silk in Yokohama.
The Suez Canal opened in 1869 and the telegraph line expanded to China in 1871, after which the company\'s operations in the east were boosted.
Meanwhile, the Standard Bank was established in Cape Province, South Africa, in 1862.
After 1867, it helped fund the development of the Kimberley diamond field and expanded north after the discovery of gold and the rise of the new town of Johannesburg in 1885.
It had been moving to central and eastern Africa and had 600 offices by 1953.
The acquisition of 1965 resulted in the establishment of branches in West Africa.
In 1969, Standard Chartered merged with Standard Chartered. Today, Standard Chartered earned 90% of its profits from Asia, Africa and China.
Entering Afghanistan is a natural move.
\"We understand the risks and understand what it means to be in a country that is out of chaos,\" Silvanus said . \".
This includes knowing to back up your paperwork in the event of a bomb explosion (
Its entire database is stored in Dubai).
Shortly after the invasion of the United States in 2001,K.
He recalled that the US Department of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs \"asked us to investigate the situation in Afghanistan \".
\"The presence of the UK in the local area allows us to consider going there to meet the needs of the government.
\"Turning losses to profits is the smallest of the problems facing the bank.
It soon realized that, in addition to the British government, there were many other potential clients, such as diplomatic missions and international development and assistance agencies, which were already clients of Standard Chartered in other parts of the world.
Operation Kabul made a profit in the second year-
Even without a loan (
Once the government has enacted banking laws, it may start lending soon).
It is one thing to find a customer;
Finding a banker to serve them is another matter.
In the memory of anyone, there is no real bank in this country.
After arriving in Kabul in November 2004 to expand his business, Mumbai man silvanas brought in six senior bankers from offices in India, Nepal and Gambia.
All seven former Standard Chartered bankspats in a well-
Kabul is a hard job and has two weeks to go home every two months.
Nevertheless, most of the staff are Afghans.
Probably no one has ever had a bank account, not to mention working in a bank, so they took courses in the basics of the Bank ---
Withdrawals, deposits, savings accounts, current accounts.
The course starts with questions: What is the bank?
In a strictly conservative Afghanistan, Standard Chartered has also achieved results in other areas.
It\'s called a woman. -
Nyram Sharma, native to Nepal--
As the manager of its main office.
Worried about how the Afghan men she would supervise would react, she was mixed up with their family at the wedding, helped at the teller window, broke the deadlock, during the busy hours, customers often ship $500,000 in cash with gunnysacks.
At the same time, she hired more women (
At present, there are 8 staff members with 30 people).
\"When I first appointed women, people always reacted negatively, \'Why?
Can she be qualified for the job? ,\'\" she says. No longer.
When they have colleagues like Sveta askarzai, 26, this is not the caseyear-
The old bank relations officer studying at the Kabul Institute of Chartered Certified Public Accountants has five mornings a week from 5: 30 to 7: 30, and then starts her usual day from 4: 30.
She brought this kind of professional ethics from her days in the United States. S.
Government agencies.
\"I am there as long as there is a need,\" she said . \".
\"I want to prove to them that Afghan women are as good as foreign women.
\"Standard Chartered not only competes with 12 domestic and regional banks in the country, but also with international aid agencies that pay the highest dollar and provide transportation to their female employees.
\"The United Nations has spoiled people,\" Silvanus complained . \".
\"It provides medical insurance for the first wife and six children.
\"The bank only includes the first wife and the first two children ---
And there is no service for going to work.
Operations in Afghanistan mean always paying attention to poppy money.
The country generates about $3 billion a year from the illicit opium trade, which means that many people who walk into branches may be money launderers who want to open accounts without too many problems.
Standard Chartered accepts only 20% of potential customers to apply for an account.
The list of people who raise the red flag for the bank is long: anyone who works for the Afghan government or politics, their immediate family members and any driver, maid or anyone who works for them.
The bank recently promoted silvanas and moved him back to Mumbai to replace him with a woman ---
Nasreen Sattar, main office of Bangladesh.
When the Central Bank of Afghanistan questioned why the bank had appointed a female successor, he ignored it.
Satar\'s agenda is Expansion: The bank aims to open a branch in the northern city of Herat.
In addition, Standard Chartered is considering entering a more dangerous market ---Baghdad.