Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr.26
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Gholamhossein Nattaj, Managing Director of Mehr Eqtesad Bank of Iran said the coordination council and the union of Iranian banks have agreed on setting interest rate at 10-21 per cent.
Of course, the interest rate for bank deposits has not been officially announced by the Central Bank, Iran's IRNA news agency quoted Nattaj as saying on April 26.
Each of the banks set the interest rate based on its conditions and fields of activity, Nattaj said.
On February 15, the Tasnim News Agency reported that five Iranian state-run and private banks have increased interest rates to 26 percent, while the Central Bank has not issued any order for increasing the interest rates since February 2012.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Hassan Nejad, a member of the Iranian Money and Credit Council, said the council has given the authority to the banks to agree on a fixed loan interest rate.
In August 2013, Central bank governor Valiollah Seif said that bank interest rate should be set proportional to the inflation rate.
He added that interest rates should be revised, so that it should be less than the inflation rate.
The real interest rate for deposits in Iran is the lowest in the world by negative 13 per cent, Iranian Eghtesadonline portal reported.
The real interest rate is the lending interest rate adjusted for inflation as measured by the GDP deflator.