Tehran, Iran – Authorities have merged considered one of Iran’s largest non-public lenders into the nation’s largest state-run financial institution in a transfer that highlights a deeply troubled financial system and can additional squeeze common residents as stress from the West grows.
The central financial institution on Thursday introduced that Ayandeh Financial institution, privately owned by considered one of Iran’s wealthiest households, can be dissolved and merged with Financial institution Melli, the government-run nationwide financial institution, and that Ayandeh branches throughout the nation can be remodeled into Financial institution Melli branches by Sunday.
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Clients had been informed their accounts and deposits are protected, and all contracts stay beneath the identical situations. However after years of murky operations and central financial institution interventions, Ayandeh had racked up losses on a scale that impacted Iran’s macroeconomics, so its bailout is not going to depart Iranians unscathed.
How did we get right here?
Ayandeh started amid a disaster within the 2010s brought on by corruption and lack of regulatory supervision over the ailing banking system, specialists informed Al Jazeera, at a time when Iran was reeling from United Nations sanctions over its nuclear programme.
That was when tons of of unlicensed monetary establishments linked with parastatal, navy, or spiritual foundations mushroomed throughout the nation.
They provided exorbitant rates of interest to draw money away from the banks, and didn’t repay the deposits in lots of cases, leaving 1000’s of traders unable to withdraw their deposits for years.
The federal government and the central financial institution lastly took over and accomplished the method of outlawing the unlicensed establishments by 2017, a yr after they managed to take management of over 25 % of the nation’s complete cash provide.
The establishments had little of their coffers after being taken over resulting from loans to insiders and cash sunk into property.
A lot of the skyrocketing debt accrued by the establishments needed to be recuperated by printing cash, which meant rising inflation and elevated prices of dwelling for common Iranians.
Ayandeh was established in 2013 through the merger of Tat Financial institution with two state-linked monetary entities, the Salehin Credit score Establishment and Aatee Credit score Establishment.
Ali Ansari, the 63-year-old enterprise tycoon whose household is believed to be among the many wealthiest in Iran, was the founding father of each Ayandeh and Tat, and owned a majority of the shares in each monetary establishments together with relations and shut associates.
Ansari has been behind gigantic actual property initiatives, owns ventures in metal, telecommunications and hospitality, and sat on the board of Tehran’s Esteghlal soccer membership, amongst different enterprise and influence-growing actions.
Simply how large are the numbers?
The financial institution has been the topic of state consideration for years.
Two years in the past, as Ayandeh racked up losses and more cash needed to be printed, the central financial institution revoked shareholder voting rights on greater than 60 % of the corporate’s inventory and gave it to the Ministry of Financial Affairs and Finance.
However that didn’t assist, and the financial institution saved borrowing from the central financial institution and the federal government to remain afloat.
By the point of Ayandeh’s compelled dissolution final week, the central financial institution stated the lender had an eyewatering 5 quadrillion rials ($4.67bn utilizing the present open market change charge) in debt, and held 2.5 quadrillion rials ($2.34bn) in individuals’s deposits.
Ayandeh was legally allowed to dole out as much as 200 trillion rials ($187m) in loans based mostly on its confirmed capital, however the central financial institution stated the lender paid about 10 instances that quantity to people and entities through the years.
As much as 1.3 quadrillion rials ($1.21bn) was given to a small variety of people and companies immediately linked with Ayandeh and its inside initiatives, in line with the central financial institution. Authorities have refused to disclose the identities of the individuals and entities who took the cash.
Iranians on-line have additionally been extensively reacting to information of Ayandeh’s chapter. Personal sector businessman Pedram Soltani was amongst those that known as for accountability.
لیست وامها و تسهیلات معوق و مشکوکالوصول و داراییهای سمی #بانک_آینده را منتشر کنید!
مردم باید بدانند هزینه چه کسانی بر جیبشان تحمیل شده است.— Pedram Soltani (@PedramSoltani1) October 24, 2025
Translation: Publish the checklist of overdue and doubtful-to-return loans and poisonous property of Ayandeh Financial institution! Individuals should know whose prices have been imposed on their pockets.
Many of the loans paid by Ayandeh have been overdue for a yr or longer and are thought of unlikely to be recovered.
Bijan Khajehpour, an economist and a managing companion at Eurasian Nexus Companions consulting agency, identified that each one Iranian banks have a big quantity of non-performing loans (NPL) of their books.
“These NPLs are a consequence of loans having been prolonged to prospects with out the due strategy of assessing their collateral based mostly on corrupt transactions between networks of energy,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“It says loads concerning the extent of corruption and the way political patronage undermines enterprise actions.”
Ayandeh was singlehandedly chargeable for an unbelievable 42 % of all overdrafts made by banks from the central financial institution, and 41 % of all capital imbalance within the beleaguered Iranian banking sector, in line with the central financial institution.
It had a capital adequacy ratio (CAR) of minus 600 %, whereas a financial institution will need to have a naked minimal ratio of 8 % beneath Basel II worldwide requirements which might be additionally accepted by Iran.
Its elimination raises the common CAR of Iran’s banking trade from 1.36 % to about 5 %.
Ayandeh will not be an remoted case; it merely underscores the systemic woes of Iran’s globally remoted monetary sector.
No less than 5 different banks, together with state-run Financial institution Sepah, which in 2020 had 5 different sinking banks merged into it within the largest banking consolidation in Iran’s historical past, are flagged by the central financial institution as being extremely imbalanced.
Corruption, political infighting
The announcement on Ayandeh’s dissolution got here in the future after Iran’s judiciary chief, ultraconservative cleric Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, immediately threatened Central Financial institution of Iran Governor Mohammad-Reza Farzin with authorized motion.
“Mr Farzin, you may have adequate authorized mandate to make any choice about Ayandeh Financial institution. Do your authorized responsibility or else we are going to are available in and enhance prices for you,” he wrote in a submit on X.
Ejei stated that regardless of the central financial institution’s involvement in working Ayandeh for seven years – appointing and dismissing the board of administrators and the CEO – the financial institution’s accrued losses elevated by as much as tenfold in that point.
No arrests or indictments, or every other type of authorized reproach, have been introduced by the judiciary regardless of the billions of {dollars} in losses.
Together with the judiciary, hardline politicians with the Paydari Entrance – who’ve been entrenching energy within the parliament, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and state media – have persistently been essentially the most vocal critics of the non-public financial institution.
Along with scoring factors for showing to be anti-corruption, the hardliners opposed the financial institution to discredit political and financial rivals within the technocratic camp affiliated with reformists who’re in favour of liberalising the Iranian financial system and opening it as much as the West.
Parliament speaker and former IRGC commander Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf hailed Ayandeh’s dissolution as “an awesome success for the nation’s decision-making and governance system” in a press release on Saturday.
How Iranians will find yourself paying the value
Ayandeh’s downfall additionally places its property, a lot of them in the true property sector, beneath full state management, however they are going to be tough and time-consuming to promote.
The central financial institution has emphasised that someway, the entire property however “not one of the imbalances” of Ayandeh can be transferred to Financial institution Melli and to compensate for among the losses, Ayandeh’s property can be managed and bought, wherever potential, by Melli.
The crown jewel of the property is Iran Mall, the most important mall on the earth by way of whole constructed flooring space, situated in western Tehran.
The Deposit Assure Fund, which insures financial institution deposits as much as a ceiling beneath the central financial institution’s auspices, must foot a fraction of the invoice as nicely.
The central financial institution says Ayandeh’s prime shareholders must account for among the cash, nevertheless it stays unclear how a lot, by what time and precisely in what kind they must pay.
Nevertheless, because of the massive quantity of accrued losses, Iranian media estimate that in an optimistic state of affairs, the state and Financial institution Melli must account for about two-thirds of the debt.
A part of that must be achieved by way of printing more cash, which itself has lengthy been recognized as a essential driver of inflation in Iran, presently at over 40 % amid reinstated UN sanctions and persistently among the many highest on the earth over many years.
In easy phrases, tens of hundreds of thousands of Iranians pays the value over the approaching months and years within the type of decreased buying energy.
Home items have already seen one other main value soar within the aftermath of the 12-day struggle with Israel and the US in June, with meals gadgets like hen, pink meat, eggs and peas experiencing the sharpest will increase.
For his half, Ayandeh’s Ansari stated in a press release on Friday that the chapter got here “on account of choices and insurance policies that had been made outdoors the financial institution’s management”, including that the financial institution has left behind “invaluable legacies and lasting property”.
Ansari added “my conscience is relaxed and my coronary heart is assured”, and stated he had devoted all his energy to service and to the general public good.
