Tejarat Bank Eying UAE, China

Tejarat Bank is looking to the UAE and China as the next target markets to expand its operations, announced the bank’s director for international affairs.

Ali Mehrpour also detailed the bank’s plans to develop its foreign exchange services and correspondent relations with foreign banks.

Mehrpour noted that only a year has passed since the implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers on January 16, 2016, and Tejarat Bank has managed to establish correspondent relations with 70 international banks.

“Negotiations were held with the representatives of a number of major international banks during the past two months, including with the representatives of Halkbank of Turkey,” he was also quoted as saying by IBENA.

The bank official added that talks with the Turkish bank centered on expanding and developing collaborations, partnering for marketing purposes in regions such as the UAE and China, creating suitable grounds for the transfer of foreign currency and assets, and the acceptance of Tejarat Bank’s time LCs by these banks.

In mid-March, the bank signed an agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China to cooperate on financing projects and opening letters of credit, based on which the Chinese bank agreed to finance two major petrochemical and telecom projects.

Pointing to a meeting with the advisor and representatives of the Chambre Franco-Iranienne du Commerce et de l’Industrie, Mehrpour said Tejarat Bank announced in the meeting that it is ready to offer services to French companies by opening letters of credit through the bank’s branch in Paris and “increasing the role of the branch in dealings between Iranian and French companies”.

In early February, Tejarat Bank’s chief executive announced that the bank has started offering services to French traders through its Paris branch “to help boost Iran-France commercial ties in the post-sanctions era”.

“French traders can now refer to the Paris branch to directly send and receive payment orders for their deals with Iranian partners,” Mohammad Ibrahim Moqaddam added.

At the time, Mehrpour had told Financial Tribune that “the Paris branch of Tejarat Bank is already connected to SWIFT and TARGET 2 networks”.

Bank Melli Iran and Bank Saderat Iran are other Iranian lenders with branches in Paris.

Established in 1979, Tejarat is the sixth largest bank in Iran. It currently has 1,800 branches across the country along with branches and offices in Dubai, Beijing and Dushanbe.

The lender also owns stocks in the Persia International Bank in the UK and Eihbank in Germany.

Currently, the government owns 17% share of the bank.

 Other Developments

The director of Tejarat Bank’s Department for International Affairs further said on Saturday that “a meeting was also held, which was attended by one of the biggest clients of Tejarat Bank in the energy sector, Italy’s Rosetti Marino group, and the Italian export credit agency SACE, regarding insurance coverage for opening letters of credit to implement bilateral projects”.

Mehrpour also pointed to a meeting with the representatives of Japan’s Mizuho Bank, which revolved around the state of Iran’s banking system concerning non-performing loans, what Tejarat has done so far to recover those loans and its efforts to implement international standards.

“The current state of liquidity, capital adequacy of the bank and measures to increase its capital in line with Basel II and Basel III were among other topics discussed with the Japanese representatives,” he said.

The Basel accords are a series of recommendations on banking laws and regulations issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.