Provincial State Account Transfer Underway

EghtesadOnline: In continuation of the initiative to transfer the bank accounts of state-owned enterprises to the Central Bank of Iran with the aim of boosting transparency, income accounts in provinces other than Tehran will be moved during the next fiscal year (starting March 21).

News ID: ۷۸۱۸۴۴

24 February 2018

According to Masoud Rahimi, director of CBI’s Office for Banknote Issuance, some 40,000 such accounts in the provinces will be moved to CBI as per an agreement with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance.

“Implementing this law is of utmost importance to the government and the country because it improves transparency, corporate and financial health and public beneficiaries,” he also told IBENA.

As the official in charge of implementing the initiative says, the process of moving the accounts began when the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2011-16) was still in motion, but only a meager 200 accounts were moved because the central bank was busy putting the technical infrastructures in place, Financial Tribune reported.

In September, Rahimi had announced that 4,200 state accounts have been moved to the central bank, but that number paled in comparison with the total number of accounts because even after a drastic decrease from the previous 220,000, a total of 70,000 accounts were still in existence.

That prompted CBI to issue a directive in late December and obligate all entities subject to the law of transferring state-owned accounts to integrate their accounts within a maximum of three months, meaning that they have until the end of the current fiscal year.

As per a directive issued by the financial decision-making body Money and Credit Council five months ago, all entities affiliated with municipalities and armed forces are subject to the law of transferring state-owned accounts.