I was listening to NPR this morning heard the following story:
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/05/319030334/afghans-must-pass-anti-money-laundering-law-or-face-blacklistThe international community has told Afghans to fix their banks and pass anti-money laundering legislation by June 22. If officials fail to do so, the country will be badlisted for five years.
Currently Afghans are having major difficulties with international money transfers as the banking system tightens the screws in order to make sure that the country votes the way the banks wish. [shame on them] This has resulted in many businesses frantically running around trying to find ways to do international transfers in order to do their imports. The established money transfer businesses are racking up, rates have climbed upwards of 80% over bank rates. This is a MAJOR opportunity for BTC business to make a major move over there.
Anyone here know anyone over there?
No I do not know anyone in Afghanistan
That said I do know that if a country is disconnected from Swift and the general financial system it becomes extremely difficult for citizens in that country to acquire and access money.
This is a real problem and it does seem forced from the Financial Action Task Force on currencies.
He says, the blacklisting would not only starve the people of food, fuel and medicine; it would starve the government of a vitally needed source of revenue. And he would be entirely correct if you look at Iran you can see there are two markets for the rial the Central Bank rate and the actual rate, trading for goods and services are complicated and it would mean that alternative solutions to bypass these boycotts for normal citizens would need to be enacted.
Mobile Banking and Bitcoin would play a big role in economic stability over there and allow students to not need to worry about having their accounts shut down by Chase Bank or National Bank of America.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-costello/why-is-bank-of-america-cl_b_5330851.htmlIt would need to be done through SMS though as their would be internet problems there. Example 37coins to throw an idea of how it could work.