Tehran, Iran, Nov. 14
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Iranians have no trust in local banks, thus they do not put their foreign currency into these banks, Akbar Torkan, an adviser to Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, said.
Torkan said that Iranian banks have previously "betrayed" the people's trust, so now they cannot absorb the money, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on Nov. 14.
Torkan, also the secretary of Iran's Free Trade Zones Coordination Council, went on to say that the country can allow the establishment of offshore banks in the free trade zones to solve this problem.
Analysts believe that the government can encourage people to invest their foreign currencies and gold in the banks, but considering the surprising decisions of Iran's Central Bank under former governor Mahmoud Bahmani's management, most likely people will not trust the suggestion.
When the sanctions imposed on Iran tightened, the Central Bank of Iran refused to pay back people's invested gold and foreign currencies, saying they can only receive the equivalent in national currency, rial.
It is while the value of USD at the free market at the time was twice the value of the official rate. So receiving the equivalent in rial meant that people would lose half of their money.
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