$307m in Loans for Tech-Based Firms

Statistics published by the Central Bank of Iran show that in the first half of the current Iranian year to Sept. 22, banks and credit institutions –mostly privatized lenders–loaned 13.55 trillion rials ($307.9 million) to knowledge-based companies.

The figure was disclosed by the monetary regulator as part of an eight-month report also containing the figures for the last month of the previous fiscal year to March 20 and the seventh month of the current fiscal year that ended on Oct. 22.

Banks doled out a respective 3.93 trillion rials ($89.3 million) and 3.113 trillion rials ($70.75 million) in the two aforementioned months, which bring the total eight-month volume of loans allocated to technology-based companies to 20.6 trillion rials ($468.18 million), according to a report published by CBI on its official website. From that amount, more than 12.4 trillion rials ($281.8 million) were provided by privatized banks, meaning that these lenders accounted for over 60% of the loans. Private banks and credit institutions were next with more than 4.7 trillion rials ($106.8 million) in loans while state-owned banks came up with more than 3.4 trillion rials ($77.27 million).

By the end of the seventh month of the current year, for the total loans allocated to 955 knowledge-based firms, banks were owed 35.71 trillion rials ($811.5 million), which puts the average of each firms’ liabilities at 37.4 billion rials ($850,000). Bank Saderat and Bank of Industry and Mine were owed the most.

While the overwhelming majority of the debts at 33.3 trillion rials ($756.8 million) are considered current liabilities (not more than two months have passed since their maturity), the rest at only 6.6% are considered noncurrent liabilities (including three categorizations based on which the probability of them being cleared is evaluated) and pertain to 113 companies.