Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 16
By Farhad Daneshvar – Trend:
A group of domestic banks have failed to observe the latest directives of the Central Bank of Iran on decreasing interest rates, a senior banking official said.
Alireza Lagzaei, the deputy head of Iran’s Bank Mellat, has said that a group of Iranian banks have failed to properly implement the CBI’s latest directives on cutting interest rates due to liquidity shortage, Ibena (Iranian banks and economy news agency) reported.
Iran’s Money and Credit Council (MCC) back in June 2016 cut down banking interest rates on loans made to borrowers from 22 percent to 18 percent.
The Money and Credit Council also approved an earlier decision by the country’s bankers to lower the deposit interest rates from 18 percent to 15 percent.
The decision to reduce the interest rates was carried out with an aim to give a boost to the country’s depressed economy followed by the administration’s triumph in lowering inflation rate in the country.
When President Hassan Rouhani took office in Aug 2013 the inflation rate was somewhere above 30 percent which dropped to single digits (9.5 percent) for the first time last June.
The decision, however, carried further implications as rumors about financial losses at some Iranian banks got around, blamed on lower interest rates.