Drop in BMI NPLs

Iran’s biggest bank managed to reduce its ratio of non-performing loans to total loans in the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2017). According to a statement published on its official news website, Bank Melli Iran announced that by the end of the previous fiscal year, BMI’s ratio of bad loans decreased by 1.2% compared with the same period of last year and reached 7.8%. This is while, it added, the average ratio of NPLs “stands at 8.8% for the banking system”. Central Bank of Iran Governor Valiollah Seif and Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayyebnia had put the banking system’s NPL ratio at 10% last month. BMI plans to establish a debt collection firm by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2018) to further reduce its NPLs.