Daijiworld Media Network – Tehran

Tehran, Oct 27: In a major financial shake-up, Iran’s Central Bank has dissolved Ayandeh Bank, one of the country’s largest commercial lenders, citing massive inefficiency, weak regulation, and years of financial mismanagement. The move marks one of the most significant state takeovers in Iran’s troubled banking sector.

Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Governor Mohammad-Reza Farzin announced that all customers, employees, and branches of Ayandeh Bank will be absorbed by the state-owned Bank Melli starting Saturday. He described the bank’s closure as necessary due to its “unhealthy performance” and “negative capital adequacy ratio.”

“Despite all the efforts made, this bank could not be placed on the path of reforms as desired by the central bank,” Farzin said, calling Ayandeh a “symbol of inefficiency and imbalance” that reflects the problems within Iran’s banking system over the past two decades.

The bank’s website, www.ba24.ir, has become inaccessible from outside Iran, and its financial statements — typically available on the Tehran Stock Exchange website — are also out of reach due to long-standing online restrictions.

The intervention follows strong criticism from Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, who recently accused Ayandeh and Central Bank officials of worsening the bank’s crisis since 2019, when it was placed under special monitoring. He said the authorities’ failure to implement reforms allowed the bank’s losses to multiply several times.

Iran’s banking sector has long struggled under the weight of US sanctions and global isolation. The country was blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2020 for non-compliance with international financial standards, further restricting its access to the global financial system.

The dissolution of Ayandeh Bank has once again highlighted the deep-rooted structural weaknesses, mounting bad debts, and lack of transparency that continue to plague Iran’s economy.