Governor of Central Bank of Iran, Akbar Komijani, has instructed relevant officials to reconsider new rules set for transferring money via bank cards.
The move came after concerns that the new card-to-card money transfer restriction would undermine small businesses, the CBI website said.
Earlier in the week, the CBI passed a bylaw imposing new limits on money transfer via bank cards to control and curb suspicious transactions.
It calls for banks to restrict card money transfers to each recipient to 20 transactions per day. Each card-holder with an ID can receive money via the cards through a maximum of 20 transactions per day. In one month the number of transactions must not exceed 80, the new rule says.
The move to restrict transactions has raised serious concern among businesses handling large numbers of transactions every day. In response the CBI on Wednesday said that none of the banks had enforced the bylaw so far.
“As per the order issued by the CBI governor, it has been decided to reconsider the scheme to protect small businesses,” the CBI said. “Efforts will be made to avoid harm to businesses”.
The CBI said setting 20 transaction ceiling is based on “smart monitoring and analysis of bank card users over the past year. The ceiling will impact only a limited number of bank card users and people.”
Mehran Mahramian, CBI deputy for innovative technologies, earlier 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.
The measure, the regulator said, is 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.
