Correspondent Banking Relations Hit 600

After the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the formal name of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers), the number of Iranian banks’ correspondent relations with foreign banks have reached 600, said the foreign exchange deputy of the Central Bank of Iran.

“Before the implementation of JCPOA when Iran was under intense financial sanctions, there was only one bank in the world that cooperated with us to some extent but now we do not depend on one bank anymore,”

Gholamali Kamyab was also quoted as saying by Banker.ir. The CBI official noted that most trade now takes place through letters of credit while correspondent banking relations have significantly increased.

“We earned the trust of the world pretty fast, therefore we could definitely say that our banking relations with the world have improved,” he said.

As reported by CBI last year, Iranian banks opened about $17 billion worth of L/Cs and started correspondent relations with 230 foreign banks during the seven months to October 2016.

Stressing that JCPOA came into force in January 2016 and after only four months the country reached the aforementioned level of global cooperation, Kamyab said the pace of the country’s international banking improvements is satisfactory.

Asked about changes in banking relations during the past few months, the official said,

“We have expanded our ties with India, China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and Turkey and also managed to establish correspondent relations with banks from Germany, Italy, Austria, Netherland and Switzerland.”

Kamyab also mentioned the positive outcomes of the Fourth Iran-Europe Banking and Business Forum that took place in Tehran last week.

“The more we interact with foreign countries, the more our relations will improve,” he said.