Silence about disclosure of bank debtors list

Banks play an extremely crucial role in any country’s relatively healthy economic system. Monetary intermediation, creating income and investment opportunities, providing extended loans, and aggregating deposits are among the banks’ major functions. Banks turn their clients’ relatively short-term deposits into long-term loans by extending credits. By aggregating deposits, they accumulate depositors’ relatively small savings into huge loans, capable of creating economic capacities. In short, banks could significantly improve economic growth and facilitate economic and production progress. In most democratic countries, the banks are held accountable for their obligations towards their clients, and a very strong system of transparency is in place. To bring peace and stability to the minds of depositors and investors, the banks are insured by reputable insurance companies and the government.

In Iran, however, banks have transformed themselves into the economy’s super challenge under the rule of mullahs and places for the regime’s thieving, corruption, and plundering. Financial statements of Iran’s major banks show that they are insolvent, with embezzlement cases in banks being even more serious than the ones related to credit institutions. The corrupt banks often offer huge interests in savings to attract deposits. The accumulated money deposited by ordinary citizens is turned into huge loans and given to regime-linked figures and institutions. These astronomical loans leave the country and never come back in most cases.

The term ‘super debtor’ is a very familiar term among the regime’s media. This term refers to those who have been granted colossal loans and have not returned them. These individuals or institutions are affiliated with the regime’s authorities, and it’s difficult to find out the names of such super debtors. A name or two of these super-debtors surface once in a while because of the clashes between the regime’s factions.

The trend of corruption continues in Raisi’s government. In Ebrahim Raisi’s government budget for the Persian year 1401, the Central Bank is obliged to publish the names of the recipients of large-scale bank loans. In theory, the publication of the list of bank debtors, on the one hand, leads to the transparency of the banking system and, on the other hand, shows the extent to which banks have moved in the direction of their set goals. According to the Mehr correspondent, at the end of last year, the Ministry of Economy, with the approach to reforming the country’s banking practices and policies, issued five important orders, the most important of which was requiring state-owned banks to publish the names of bank super-debtors. In this regard, the Minister of Economy had written a letter to the Governor of the Central Bank requesting the Monetary and Credit Council to “require banks to publish the names of their super-debtors once every three months on the relevant bank’s website.”

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