Baku, Azerbaijan, April 28
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: The ceiling of bank interest rates in Iran may rise to 22 percent.
Abdolnaser Hemmati, chairman of the coordination council of Iranian state-run banks, said the ceiling of bank interest rates may be set at 22 percent if the Central Bank approves the rate, Iran's Tasnim news agency reported on April 28.
The Central Bank will announce the rate within the next two days, Hemmati said.
On April 26, Gholamhossein Nattaj, Managing Director of Mehr Eqtesad Bank of Iran said the coordination council and the union of Iranian banks have agreed on setting the interest rate at 10-21 percent.
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.
Each of the banks set the interest rate based on its conditions and fields of activity, Nattaj said.
On Feb. 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.
Edited by C.N.