The Central Bank of Iran transferred $780 million to the International Monetary Fund through SWIFT interbank messaging system in order to increase Iran’s quota with the international lender. The measure raised Iran’s voting power to 0.74 % from 0.62%, Gholamali Kamyab, deputy governor of the Central Bank of Iran for foreign exchange affairs said on Monday.
“Iran’s quota in the International Monetary Fund has increased 138% reaching 3.567 million SDRs from the previous 1.497 million SDRs,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Quotas are based on a weighted average of GDP, openness, economic variability and international reserves. They are expressed in a value known as the SDRs, an international reserve asset determined by the value of the US dollar, euro, Japanese yen and pound sterling. The United States currently has the largest quota, with SDRs 42.1 billion, or approximately $59 billion.
Only twenty countries on the IMF chart have a quota of 1% or more with countries like Denmark at 0.74%, Ireland 0.74%, Malaysia 0.78%, Singapore 0.83% and Austria at 0.84%.
Stating that all Iranian banks are now connected to SWIFT, the senior official dismissed claims by some conservative media outlets that Iran’s banking industry is still not reconnected with SWIFT. He stressed that Iranian traders are now using the international transaction system for export and import.
“One of the reasons proving the reconnection to SWIFT is the decrease in transaction costs with other countries. Moreover, Iranian and European banks have opened credit lines and some correspondent banking relations have also been established with lenders throughout the world,” Kamyab expounded.
The CBI and the banking system were reconnected to SWIFT on January 16 – the day Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers came into effect, but some technical adjustments, like installing new software and defining users, were required before operations took off.
The CBI convened a meeting last week to explain the new functions of SWIFT to Iranian bankers. Onur Ozan, a country manager at SWIFT hosted the session.
