TEHRAN – Deputy CBI 

governor for International Affairs in the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Mohsen Karimi said Sunday that country and Russia signed an MoU to connect their banking messaging systems through which financial and banking exchanges will be facilitated.

“The memorandum of understanding on connecting and financial messengers between Iran and Russia was signed, and financial and banking exchanges between the two countries and 13 other countries that are present in Russia were facilitated,” Karimi said at the signing ceremony of the MoU between Iran and Russia in Tehran on Sunday afternoon.

“Over the past year, the document of joint actions between Iran and Russia was signed by both sides and this MoU was the first action that was implemented,” he also said, adding “From now on, the financial messengers of all Iranian banks and all Russian banks are linked to each other.”

“According to this MoU,.. all Iranian banks and all Russian banks can have standard banking messages,” the CBI official said, adding, “all Iranian banks abroad and all foreign banks connected to the Russian messaging system which includes more than 100 banks in 13 foreign countries (in addition to Russia’s) can exchange with Iranian banks after the platform launched.”

Karimi said that the messaging system is immune to sanctions as it is based on the two nations’ internal infrastructures. 

“In the context of these two messengers, all standard banking messages including money order, guarantee, LC, etc. can be exchanged, and considering that the central banks of the two countries exchange and interact on the basis of their own national infrastructures, this MoU is unstoppable and unsanctionable,”

Karimi further said that “now we will conduct the first exchange of messages between an Iranian and a Russian bank,” adding, “in the coming days and given the presence of the technical team of the Central Bank of Russia in Tehran, the links between all Iranian and Russian banks will be established through these messaging systems.”

The deputy of the Russian Central Bank, Vladislav Gridchin, at the signing ceremony of the MoU, for his part, said, “The biggest advantage of this MoU is that Western sanctions cannot affect it, and our financial organizations will be more widely connected with other financial institutions and organizations of Iran after signing this MoU.”

“This MoU is related to financial messengers and fund transmitters, which will greatly help the two countries’ business people,” the Russian official further said. 

 

Russia Becomes Largest 

Foreign Investor in Iran

 

The head of organization for Investment & Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran Ali Fekri said that Russia has become the largest foreign investor in Iran.

Fekri said the Russians had brought some $2.7 billion worth of investment to two petroleum projects in Iran in the past 15 months.

The figure accounts for some 45% of the total foreign investment attracted by Iran over the period, said Fekri.

He said Iran has attracted a significant amount of foreign investment in the past 15 months despite U.S. sanctions that ban countries and entities from engaging in business activity in Iran.

The official added, however, that Iran was not happy with the amount of investment committed by China for economic and energy projects in Iran in the 15 months to the end of 2022.

“China has invested nearly $185 million in Iran over that period which we are not happy with given the amount of negotiations and meetings we had,” he said.

Fekri said Iran had set a target of $10.2 billion in direct foreign investment for the 15 months to December last year of which some $5.95 billion had entered the country.

He said the figure was much higher than investments that had been attracted by Iran in years that followed the signing of a nuclear agreement between the country and world powers in 2015.

The rise in foreign investment in Iran comes as the country is still under an American regime of sanctions that has banned any investment in Iranian economic and energy projects since 2018.