The Central Bank of Iran and the Iranian Judiciary on Tuesday unveiled an integrated judicial system, known as Siaq that allows the online issuance of orders for freezing or unfreezing accounts.
Speaking at a ceremony held at the CBI’s headquarters in Tehran. Mehran Mahramian, the central bank’s deputy for innovative technologies, said CBI, in collaboration with the judiciary and the banking network, has developed a system for expediting the execution of judicial orders in the banking network, upholding the rights of complainants, ensuring swift and convenient inter-agency services, and providing high-quality services to the public.
“The completion of Siaq system would eliminate paper-based correspondence and inter-agency bureaucracy, replacing them with expanded electronic interactions between the banking system and the judicial institutions. This advancement will enable all stages of account identification by the judicial authorities and the issuance of orders for freezing or unfreezing accounts, to be carried out online, instantaneously and round the clock,” IBENA quoted him as saying.
According to Mahramian, as of July 4, the service for freezing and unfreezing accounts is fully accessible to the judiciary for the execution of court orders.
"Currently, with the completion of this system, the average response time is to be reduced from 164 days in 2017 to approximately 4 minutes," he said.
The official also highlighted the implementation of the new check law in collaboration with the parliament and the judiciary and said, "Fortunately, with the enforcement of this law, the number of individuals imprisoned due to bounced checks has decreased considerably.”
The Central Bank of Iran and the judiciary are also preparing a financial conviction record system to prevent the abuse of payment tools.
The system is already in place for CBI platforms and its performance is being studied by the relevant CBI departments.
"By using the service, the possibility of abusing payment tools will be minimized and allocation of funds to individuals will become fairer," he said.
Mahramian noted that by curbing non-performing bank loans, the volume of liquidity in the banking network will improve, and thus a major factor intensifying inflation will be controlled.
Last year, the judiciary and CBI signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate information exchange and help detect and prevent financial crimes.
As per the MoU, both sides were committed to set up interactive platforms and IT systems for registering and sharing information. Parties were to use the information to facilitate online inquiries, ease judicial processes for curbing banking and financial crimes and protect bank customers and users of payment services against potential crimes.
The MoU was to minimize paperwork and promote online interaction between the banks and courts. Online communication also helps ensure the veracity of information.
