The Central Bank of Iran issued new gaudiness to further limit banking services to and transactions by minors and the legally incapacitated.
Banks are banned from “granting any type of payment instrument, lending, opening current accounts and selling foreign currency to the incapacitated,” IRNA reported.
In legal terms, the incapacitated are those under 18 years or adults unable to manage their personal financial affairs.
The incapacitated are allowed to open no more than one Qarzol-Hassaneh (interest-free) deposit account and one savings account (interest-bearing deposit account) in their name.
Having either accounts is allowed in maximum two banks. They also cannot open joint accounts with other bank customers.
In addition, bank clients under 18 cannot rent safe deposit vaults in banks. The CBI also limited the daily card transactions for this group of bank customers.
Each minor between 7-12 years can henceforth buy goods to a maximum of 100 million rials a day using debit cards. The daily ceiling for minors 12-18 years and the non-compos mentis is 150 million rials.
Likewise, the incapacitated are not allowed to withdraw more than 500 million rials per day and 5 billion rials per month from their deposits accounts.
The new regulations seem to be in line with anti-money laundering policies increasingly enforced by the CBI in the past two years. It also seeks to help the regulator improve much-needed transparency in the banking sector and curb tax evasion.
The CBI has often said that as the monetary regulator, it is committed to “curb money circulation” seen as ruinous to the economy.
The central bank announced a daily cap for banking transactions of adults. As per the rules, which came into effect in early 2020, transactions via all inter-bank systems was limited to one billion rials per person per day.
It earlier compartmentalized individual and business accounts requiring individual customers to show proof to validate money transfers above two billion rials at one bank per day.
