TEHRAN, Iran, Jan. 31
Trend:
The Central Bank of Iran is moving to get commercial banks to sell their excess properties to the Iranian National Tax Administration (INTA), Trend reports citing IRNA.
Under a law approved by parliament in 2015, the banks are obliged to sell 33 percent of their excess properties — at the discretion of the CBI as well as the Money and Credit Council — every year. In June 2015, while Iran was still under severe economic and financial sanctions, the CBI called on banks to list their excess properties for sale.
The intensification of sanctions and subsequent collapse of the rial’s value in 2012 left many borrowers unable to repay their debts to the banking system, leading banks to seize the collateral (usually in the form of land, buildings and shares of companies) put forth by borrowers. As a result, banks ended up owning buildings and companies that they had no expertise in running.
"The banks violating the law will have to pay taxes for keeping excess properties,” governor of CBI Ali Saleh-Abadi said in a statement published on his Instagram account.
He stressed that selling excess properties held by Iranian banks is a major priority of the CBI.
The Central Bank has provided an inventory of excess assets owned by different Iranian banks.
Iran's government stressed the importance of cashing out the government's surplus properties for providing part of the country's required budget.