Taliban Announces Approval of New Law on Money Exchange & Services

Hasibullah Noori, the spokesman for the Taliban-controlled Central Bank of Afghanistan, announced the approval of a new law on "money exchange and services". Under the new law, no one can perform paid services without a licence, Noori said.

He stressed that working as a money changer without a licence is considered a "crime" after the law is signed and will be prevented.

So far, the Taliban-controlled Central Bank of Afghanistan has not released the full version of the law.

The Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency reported on Friday (October 19) that the Central Bank of Afghanistan says that the new law has made it easier for money changers to obtain licences. However, Bakhtar has not explained what these facilities are.

‘Three years of dissatisfaction with Taliban's monetary policy’

In the past three years, relations between the Taliban and money changers have been accompanied by numerous dissatisfaction by money changers and the issuance of new orders by the Taliban. The issuance of new Taliban rules has led to frequent protests and arrests of money changers.

Money changers complain that the Taliban has imposed heavy fees for obtaining an exchange licence and they cannot afford to pay it. According to money changers, the Taliban have set a fee of five to six million afghanis for obtaining a licence and three million afghanis for a guarantee. In this way, each money changer must pay 9 million afghanis to the Taliban to obtain a work permit.

In the past three years, the Taliban has repeatedly closed the exchange offices of Herat, Kandahar, Kabul and some other provinces due to lack of licences. The high cost of licences and the imposition of increasing restrictions on money changers have been met with widespread reactions across Afghanistan. They have repeatedly protested and demanded that these problems be addressed.