Just five years ago changing dollars in Syria was a tricky process – either wade through mounds of paperwork and bureaucracy at a state bank to change foreign currency at an exceedingly bad rate or wander the streets waiting for a man to idle up to you and whisper, “change money.” Back then, any Syrian seen with greenbacks poking out of his wallet would have been paying a trip to the local police station. Today, it is another story. You can change money pretty much anywhere, withdraw from an ATM or go to one of the numerous private banks newly established in the last three years. Syria’s banking reforms, kicked off in 2001 with amendments to the law allowing the entry of foreign banks, has been the harbinger of this change, boosting the private sector and slowly altering attitudes to banking and financial services. “We are moving in the right
