Iran’s central bank tightens grip on national payment system
Iran’s central bank is increasingly closing loopholes in the country’s payment system that allowed for destabilization of the monetary and foreign currency markets.
It is becoming increasingly vital in Iran, with its economy squeezed by US sanctions, to strike a semblance of financial stability. With that in mind, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has in recent months started implementing a series of measures in the country’s payment systems to better manage the monetary and foreign currency markets.
The new measures, which reportedly take aim at both card-present and card-not-present transactions, are hoped to increase transparency, combat money laundering and fraud, and strengthen the national currency. They are being realized under CBI Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati.
Hemmati has adopted a more active and independent approach compared to his predecessor Valiollah Seif. The former governor was fired in late July 2018 for mismanaging a currency crisis that formed on back of US sanctions, which were reimposed after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Iran’s national currency, the rial, lost more than 60% of its value in 2018 but has relatively stabilized in recent months.
Toward the end of the previous Iranian year in March, the CBI started blocking point-of-sale (POS) devices that were issued inside Iran but were being utilized outside the country’s borders.
