By Aryn Baker (’01), Time.com
Dec 04, 2006

With his tattered gray turban, his threadbare waistcoat and the gnarled hands of a laborer, Karim Khan hardly looks like the ideal customer for a financial-services firm. But to the Azizi Bank in Kabul, he’s a prime client. Khan is one of some 60,000 Afghans who have opened an account at Azizi since a new savings product was launched four months ago. Although his initial deposit of $100 in crumpled Afghani notes may seem paltry, because of customers like him Azizi is increasing its deposit base faster than any other bank in the country. “You have business opportunities here in Afghanistan like nowhere else in the world,” says Hayatullah Dayani, the bank’s chief of business development.

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