The Central Bank of Iran has imposed new limits on money transfer via bank cards in a renewed bid to control and curb suspicious transactions.
In a bylaw to banks, the CBI has required them to limit card-to-card money transfer to each recipient to 20 transactions per day, according to the Persian-language journal Peyvast.
Each card-holder with an ID can receive money via bank cards through a maximum of 20 transactions per day. In one month the number of transactions must not exceed 80, according to the new rules.
It is a fresh move to identify and monitor suspicious transactions and lenders are obliged to develop IT mechanism to enforce the bylaw. Banks have three months to put the infrastructure in place.
Restricting daily transactions in this manner is of serious concern for businesses. Mehran Mahramian, CBI deputy for innovative technologies, said the 20-transaction cap per day is backed by relevant studies.
Citing research, he did not deny the negative impact on businesses but said it would be minimal. “Efforts have been made to reduce harm to legal businesses to a minimum,” he said without elaboration.
Observers say the new limits can and will push businesses toward using online payment gateways, which have also recently come under CBI scrutiny.
Using payment gateways exposes transactions to the CBI and tax. Since January the payment regulator has obliged new applicants of payment instruments, including internet gateways and POS terminals, to file tax returns with the Iranian National Tax Administration.
Over the past two years the CBI announced a series of rules to increase scrutiny of banks and their transactions. This, among other things, is to promote anti-money laundering measures, curb tax evasion and curtail speculation in financial markets, namely gold and foreign exchange.
The CBI recently launched a project known as NAHAB to ascertain the identity of bank clients and ban banking transactions of customers whose identity is not clear-cut for the bank.
The CBI says it is committed to preventing the unbridled circulation of money Earlier the central bank announced a daily cap for bank transactions of adult clients. The rules came into effect in early 2020 and transactions via inter-bank systems were limited to one billion rials per person per day. Last September it restricted daily transactions for clients under 18 years of age up to 150 million rials.
The regulator also set a daily cap of 1 billion rials on transactions by point-of-sale terminals and strictly limited the use of POS devices overseas.
