User:Afghanistan Banks Association/Afghanistan Banks Association

Afghanistan Banks Association (ABA) is a non – political, non-government, non-profit and independent association established in September 2004 to meet the need of growing banking sector as a united body representing all banks to serve as their voice in dialogues with DAB, government and other stakeholders. ABA was initially founded by nine licensed banks but membership has since grown to include all 16 duly licensed banks. ABA strives to promote a strong, healthy and competitive banking industry in Afghanistan and represents the common interests of Afghanistan banking sector. ABA is funded primarily by its member banks, but is empowered to generate its own revenues and accept donor funding.

ABA’s transformation was initiated in 2012 to implement its Strategic Plan and build its advocacy functions through financial, technical and infrastructure development assistance. Since then, ABA has undergone a significant revival, making major progress toward becoming a proactive association to act on behalf of its members. ABA has been taking vital steps to expand financial inclusion in the country by arranging Access to Finance roundtables in provinces and yearly access to finance exhibitions covering businesses in all sectors of the economy operating in Afghanistan. Moreover, ABA has conducted trainings, workshops and arranged work groups on important banking sector related topics to its members such as corporate governance, SME lending, purchase order finance and value chain finance with the support from Financial Access for Investing in the Development of Afghanistan (FAIDA) Project of USAID. Future efforts of ABA will be directed more toward the implementation of ABA strategic plan, the development of its institutional system and process, regular arranging of access to finance exhibitions to promote formal banking sector, and working on banking sector legal issues, advocacy and policy research.