Jailing defaulting debtors in Gulf 'morally wrong'

The practice of jailing debtors who default on payments in the Gulf "sounds morally wrong", a leading economist was quoted as saying by Arabian Business.

Roy Batchelor, Professor of Banking and Finance at London’s Cass Business School, said in an interview: “I can see that a piece of bad luck is going to send you to prison, and that sounds morally wrong, never mind the economics of it.”

Professor Batchelor, whose previous students include easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, said the attitude of Gulf banks to lending was out of sync with banks in much of the rest of the world.