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Banks: The Esfandiar’s Eye of the System

siavash — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:23:25 +0000

Banks: The Esfandiar’s Eye of the System

TEHRAN (Iran News) The Islamic Republic of Iran emerged from a revolution grounded in 1,400 years of faith-based principles. These religious foundations have been tempered through centuries to withstand any ideology—whether materialist, syncretic, false mysticism, or even new social schools of thought—leaving enduring guidance. However, in the management of money and financial policy, even with the Quran’s explicit guidance that “wealth is a tool of survival; do not entrust it to fools,” the system’s inexperience and mismanagement caused irreparable harm to both the nation and its people over the 47 years of the revolution. One can liken this mismanagement to what the Quran calls folly in handling wealth.

Sadeq Amoli Larijani, former head of the judiciary and current chairman of the Expediency Council, recently addressed this destructive role of monetary policy and banks in a speech on Student Day, December 9, 2025. He candidly admitted that the system erred in privatizing banks and relinquishing control over monetary management. He criticized the establishment of private banks, stating, “The creation of private banks, which began even before Ahmadinejad, was 100% wrong!” He further noted that this system had become a “private haven for corrupt activities.”

Larijani also highlighted the Central Bank’s five-year neglect in dealing with the Future Bank crisis, which then spread to other banks such as Bank Sepah, stressing the need for corrective measures.

I myself, back in 1992, criticized the initiation of private banking by Mohsen Nourbakhsh, then head of the Central Bank, supported by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in an article summarized in the Central Bank bulletin. Despite this, the Central Bank hastened the establishment of numerous private banks, cementing a policy that became nearly irreversible.

For 33 years, this model of banking—mirroring the English system imposed in many British colonies to dominate monetary control—has perpetuated devastating inflation and created a nouveau-riche class. It produced an unbelievable Gini coefficient and competitive interest rates in a country where usury (riba) is strictly forbidden, effectively becoming the Achilles’ heel of the Islamic system.

Since those early years, I have consistently advocated in speeches and writings for a unified banking system under ten specialized organizations. Under this model, a Central Bank is unnecessary. Oversight of the specialized organizations could be conducted under a single banking authority, which would both rectify past mistakes and ensure proper, faith-aligned use of financial resources.

We must remain vigilant. I will hold accountable those responsible in the afterlife and challenge the deaf ears of those who, over 33 years, created this Achilles’ heel of the system.

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Foreign ministry raps Bahrain’s ruling against Iranian banks

reporter 1222 — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 05:55:58 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has slammed the Bahraini government’s ruling against a number of Iranian banks, saying the rulings are based upon bogus charges and lack any legal credibility.

In a statement on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi rejected the Bahraini government’s rulings against ‘Future Bank’ and its managers and against a number of other Iranian banks, saying, “The rulings have been issued on the basis of a fabricated case, and the bogus accusations against the convicts in the case lack any legal value and bear the Bahraini government’s responsibility for their consequences.”

“Needless to say, Iran will not hesitate to defend the interests and rights of its nationals,” he added.

“Future Bank was founded in 2004 at the suggestion and with the permission of the Bahraini government as a joint venture among Iran’s Melli Bank and Saderat Bank as well as Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank, and, from the outset, that country’s (Bahrain’s) Central Bank has been constantly and continually monitoring the banking activities and transactions through its supervisory sections and its representatives in Future Bank’s board of directors,” Mousavi added.

“The Bahraini government’s political and illegal move to confiscate it (Future Bank) and authorize the Central Bank of Bahrain to administer it on April 30, 2015, forced the Iranians shareholders of the bank (Melli Bank and Saderat Bank) to pursue the case through an international tribunal. In such conditions, a legal ruling issued by a judicial system is incomprehensible and could only indicate that the court lacks any legal credibility and is only implementing orders and decisions from the Bahraini government’s political and security organizations,” the spokesman stated.

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson further slammed the Bahraini government’s measure as a blatant misuse of the situation where the public opinion has focused on the battle with the coronavirus outbreak and as a sign of collaboration with the US government’s maximum pressures, adding, “Such move by the Bahraini government has been made for the purpose of diverting the attention of public opinion from that country’s (Bahrain’s) illegal measure to confiscate the aforementioned bank (Future Bank) and in an effort to overshadow the process of international judgment on the legal action the Iranian parties of Future Bank have taken against the government of Bahrain, and is rejected from the viewpoint of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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Second cyberattack in less than a week; ICT minister

reporter 1222 — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 04:51:18 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran’s ICT minister announced on Sunday that the country has defused a second cyberattack in less than a week, this time “aimed at spying on government intelligence.”

Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said in a short Twitter post that the attack was “identified and defused by a cybersecurity shield,” and that the “spying servers were identified and the hackers were also tracked,” AP wrote.

Last Wednesday, Azari Jahromi said a “massive” and “governmental” cyberattack also targeted Iran’s electronic infrastructure. He provided no specifics on the attack except to say it was also defused and that a report would be released.

On Tuesday, the minister dismissed reports of hacking operations targeting Iranian banks, including local media reports that accounts of millions of customers of Iranian banks were hacked.

This is not the first time Iran says it has defused a cyberattack, though it has disconnected much of its infrastructure from the Internet after the Stuxnet computer virus, widely believed to be a joint US-Israeli creation, attacked thousands of Iranian centrifuges in the country’s nuclear sites in the late 2000s.

In June, American officials claimed that US military cyber forces launched a strike against Iranian military computer systems as President Donald Trump backed away from plans for a more conventional military strike in response to Iran’s downing of a US spy drone in the strategic Persian Gulf.

Tensions have escalated between the US and Iran ever since Trump withdrew America last year from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and began a policy of “maximum pressure.” Iran has since been hit by multiple rounds of sanctions.

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