Seeds of change: Pakistan's interest-free banking

The author devotes the article to a discussion of the implications and consequences of Pakistan's move from an interest-based banking system to an interest-free one. The author relates that the role of interest in modern economics is so central that it requires a degree of creativity to envision what things would be like without any interest at all. Some criticisms of the new system, and especially of a mark-up practice that resembles simple interest and was only hesitatingly approved by the ideological board, are mentioned. It is reported that the mark-up practice is the one most commonly used. The author sees this as a reflection of the fact that bankers are unaware of the fields their clients are in, and thus they are unable to know what partnerships they should enter into. Reportedly, the Pakistani government asks a fixed return from banks--yet it insists that those banks use a profit and loss sharing system. The author mentions the 1974 nationalization of banks and he claim