Bank Sepah Deposits Hit Record

Bank Sepah attracted deposits worth 650 trillion rials ($17.3 billion) in the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2017), registering a growth of 29% compared with the previous year’s figure, the bank’s CEO said.

“The above-mentioned growth indicates Bank Sepah is the second successful bank in absorbing resources and offering loans last year,” Mohammad Kazem Choghazardi was also quoted as saying by Banker.ir.

He claimed that the growth in Sepah’s deposits has been unprecedented in 20 years while the 70% leap in other kinds of deposits (excluding long-/short-term deposits) provided the bank with cheap resources that enabled it to take big steps for boosting the economy.

“The bank financed 3,500 small- and medium-sized enterprises in provinces with over 3 trillion rials ($80 million) of capital  in line with the goals of Resistance Economy principles outlined by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to foster the non-oil economy,” he said.

 “We were among the few banks that did not overdraw from the Central Bank of Iran’s resources and settled the CBI’s allocated credit lines on time.”

He noted that the ratio of non-performing loans of the bank had decreased to 38.10% from 68.11% and the goal is to bring it below 10% in the current Iranian year.

The bank CEO mentioned that Bank Sepah is among the top Iranian banks in financing strategic projects and providing loans to startup businesses, stressing that the bank’s financial indexes place it among strong banks.

Choghazardi said the bank has been successful in issuing guarantees since the total amount is over 60 trillion rials ($1.6 billion).

However, Bank Sepah was struggling with low capital adequacy that was announced by the research arm of the Iranian Parliament to be 2.46%, which figure is expected to rise to 10% following a decision made by members of the Cabinet for increasing the capital of public-sector banks.

Majlis Research Center published a report in January and declared that the minimum capital adequacy ratio should be 8%.