Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion

My interest in money stems from the incidents of 9/11 in the United States. After theattacks in the US, all major governments and international organizations passed stringent laws against informal money transfer channels labeled as funding terrorism allover the world. In Pakistan, the state curtailed the illegal funds transfer channel knownas hawala by arresting prominent currency dealers and passing the Anti-Hawala Act. Ahawala channel is a monetary network/practice that relies on centuries-old kinshipbonds for transferring value without moving physical cash from one place to another. Inplace of these informal and embedded monetary channels, the state opened up a marketfor multinational corporations such as Western Union and the branchless banking sectorto integrate hitherto unbanked people into the gambit of modern finance under thenational strategy called “financial inclusion.”