Palestine country profile: the road ahead for Palestine: financial policies issues

Abstract

Financial institutions and markets function are provider of financial services through the process of buying money or financial services in certain situation, and then selling these money or financial services in another situation. The institutions that provide such services are called intermediary institutions. The first intermediary institutions were the moneychangers, that later grew into commercial banks. Other forms of financial institutions are insurance companies and financial markets emerged mainly during the past two centuries. In Palestine, the financial sector “which used to consisted only of financial institutions” emerged at the beginning of the past century, and developed to a mature sector during the British mandate.