Afghanistan's troubled Kabul Bank is being split into a "good bank" and a "bad bank" in a desperate bid to save it from collapse, the central bank said. The announcement is the latest twist in a scandal involving figures close to President Hamid Karzai - including one of his brothers - which has highlighted chaos and corruption in war-torn Afghanistan's financial system.
It came as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) considers a new financial assistance plan for desperately poor Afghanistan. The IMF has indicated it is conditional on the Kabul Bank crisis being resolved. The bank had to be taken over by Afghanistan's central bank after claims that former executives granted themselves off-the-book loans worth a reported $900 million which were partly used to buy luxury properties in Dubai.