Tehran, Iran, May 5
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad - Trend:
The Central Bank of Iran has registered more than 1.5 billion transactions in one month, the managing director of Iran’s Culture Center & Learning Electronic Banking Dr. Mohammad Morad Bayat said in an exclusive interview with the Trend.
Iran’s payment settlement networks affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran processed more than 1.5 billion transactions in a one-month period, he said.
Bayat also said that the Islamic Republic ranks first in the region with respect to having ATMS and providing people with other payment terminals.
Iranian banks are now facing a major problem, as they are not connected to global electronic payment terminals and providers of secure financial messaging services, Bayat said, adding that this has turned Iran into an island and it is not a technical issue.
SWIFT – the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication – is used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders. It provides a wide range of service including transmitting letters of credit, payments and securities transactions among 9,700 banks in 209 countries.
Following the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers and the ensuing removal of anti-Tehran sanctions, Global transaction network SWIFT reconnected a number of Iranian banks to its system, allowing them to resume cross-border transactions with foreign banks
It seems, however, that US President Donald Trump’s potential decision to withdraw from the international agreement on May 12 has dissuaded foreign banks from doing trade with Iran.