Bank Melli Iran
| Bank Melli Iran | |
|---|---|
| legal form | state |
| founding | 1927 |
| Seat | Tehran , Iran |
| management | Abdolhamid Ansari , CEO |
| Number of employees | 43,000 (2008) |
| Branch | State Bank |
| Website | www.bmi.ir |
Bank Melli Iran or National Bank of Iran (BMI , Persian بانک ملی ایران) is the largest state bank in Iran .
Founding history
The bank was founded in 1927 by resolution of the Iranian parliament ( Majles ) as the first state bank in Iran.
The first managing director was the German Kurt Lindenblatt , who had previously worked for the National Bank of Bulgaria and had been recommended by Wilhelm Bötzkes , the then head of the bank for industrial bonds of today's IKB Deutsche Industriebank . Linden leaf initially turned out to be a lucky choice. The bank began operations in Tehran in September 1928 and opened branches in major cities in Iran in the years to come. Due to the beginning of the global economic crisis , the bank had considerable refinancing problems, which it wanted to solve through its own business in raw materials trading. Instead of a profit, the bank had accumulated a loss of 8.7 million rials at the end of the financial year of March 1932, which was equivalent to the equivalent of 900,000 British pounds at the time. Lindenblatt traveled to Germany for economic talks in June 1932. His deputy Vogel, who was accused by the Iranian side of embezzling funds from the bank, fled to Beirut, was arrested there and committed suicide in prison. After his return to Iran, Lindenblatt was interrogated and immediately released. In the public trial, however, he was fully rehabilitated. Abdolhossein Teymurtasch , Minister of the Court and Reza Shah's right-hand man , was also arrested in connection with the scandal surrounding the losses of Bank Melli in January 1933 and sentenced to five years in prison because he had borrowed considerable sums from the bank at preferential interest rates , and those on loan Had used funds to speculate against the Iranian currency. A few months later, Teymurtash died in custody under unexplained circumstances. Lindenblatt's successor was General Amir Khosrovi, who had taken over the management of Bank Sepah (Army Bank) in 1931.
In 1931 the bank was authorized by parliament to print the Iranian rial notes and put them into circulation. Until then, this task was the responsibility of the British owned Imperial Bank of Persia . Under Khosrovi and later Hossein Ala , the bank expanded its business considerably. In addition to being a central bank, her job was to run a regular bank for the financing of trade and industry. Until Abol Hassan Ebtehaj took over management , Bank Melli was more a department of the Ministry of Finance than an independent bank. Ebtehaj was the first to change this fundamentally and turn Bank Melli into an autonomous institution.
The bank lost its role as Iranian central bank in 1960 with the establishment of Bank Markazi . From now on it was just a commercial bank. In 1965 the first foreign branch was opened in Hamburg .
Business activity
Since its inception, the BMI has grown to become the market leader in the Iranian financial industry. It handles over half of Iran's foreign trade and maintains around 3,100 branches, 16 of which are abroad. All BMI business is conducted according to the rules of Islamic banking . The current manager of the bank is Abdolhamid Ansari .
The branches are located in Baku , Bahrain , Hong Kong , Muscat , Muharraq , Moscow . There are also seven branches in the United Arab Emirates . The activities of the branches in London , Paris and Hamburg had to be stopped after the EU sanctions of June 2008.
Sanctions
In connection with the dispute over nuclear facilities in Iran, the USA issued sanctions against the Federal Ministry of the Interior in October 2007 in the anti-proliferation and anti-terror orders . On March 20, 2008, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the US Treasury Department issued a warning against dealing with the BMI and other Iranian banks, as well as against money laundering and terrorism support.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on the occasion of George W. Bush's visit to London on June 16, 2008 that the bank's foreign assets would be frozen with immediate effect. The European Union then made a similar announcement and joined the sanctions against Bank Melli Iran.
Web links
- Official site (Persian)
- Official site (English)
- Official website of the Hamburg branch
Individual evidence
- ↑ Frances Bostock, Geoffrey Jones: Planning and Power in Iran. Frank Class, 1989, pp. 33f.
- ↑ Fear of sanctions. Iran sells securities. n-tv.de, June 25, 2008, accessed October 3, 2008 .
- ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 423/2007 of the Council of April 19, 2007 on restrictive measures against Iran
- ↑ 2008/475 / EC: Council decision of June 23, 2008 implementing Article 7 (2) of Regulation (EC) No. 423/2007 on restrictive measures against Iran
- ↑ John McGlynn: Day of Infamy: The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran , Global Research, March 24, 2008; German translation: INAMO, issue 56, volume 14, pp. 38–43
- ↑ US and Britain warn Iran against 'path of confrontation'. earthtimes.org, June 16, 2008, accessed October 3, 2008 .
- ↑ EU freezes Iranian bank accounts. SPIEGEL ONLINE, June 23, 2008, accessed October 3, 2008 .