Iran to create fully-owned bank in Azerbaijan

Iran’s top banker says the country plans to establish a bank in Azerbaijan with 100 percent Iranian ownership.

Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency in a report quoted Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), as saying that the plan involved turning a branch of Bank Melli Iran in Azerbaijan into an independent Azerbaijani bank.

Seif added that all the shares of the new bank will be owned by Bank Melli Iran and that the technicalities for the plan would be discussed during the visit of Azerbaijani delegation to Tehran next week. 

Earlier, it was planned to create a joint bank in Azerbaijan and the branches of this bank would operate both in Azerbaijan and Iran, Trend reported.

Elsewhere in his remark, Seif emphasized that certain plans were on agenda for Iran and Azerbaijan to use their national currencies in mutual transactions.

"Central banks of the two countries plan to create accounts in national currencies to simplify the trade between Iran and Azerbaijan," Trend quoted the Iranian official as saying.

He added that Tehran and Baku have held talks on expanding their financial cooperation, as well as boosting the relations between the two countries’ commercial banks.

SS