Vistar - Business Monitor

Term-Deposit Rate Ceiling May be Decreased to 15%

May 22, 2016 Abdol-Naser Hemmati, the ex-head of the banks coordination council, announced that bankers would meet in two weeks’ time to approve a plan to further reduce deposit rate ceiling to 15 percent from 18 percent. One of the main concerns of banks is that further decline in deposit rate ceiling may cause billion of rials in term-deposit accounts to leave commercial banks for credit and financial institutions, which have not yet authorized by the central bank and other markets such as FOREX and gold. Read more

Infiltration into the Central Bank of Iran with the Excuse of Fighting Usury

May 15, 2016 Some of the lawmakers, who have failed to win a seat in the next parliament, have raised a motion that would push monetary officials to apparently fight usury in the banking system. However, the move is actually an effort to infiltrate the Central Bank of Iran and its subsidiaries. News media have already called the motion as a sign of rising tension between the administration and parliament, making the CBI governor to write a letter to the speaker asking on the so-called free-usury banking plan to be blocked. Read more