Iran’s leading banks will soon open branches in India to energise commercial ties between New Delhi and Tehran.
The
decision was amongst a slew of commercial measures taken by the
India-Iran Joint Commission that met for the first time since Iran and
the P-5+1 grouping struck a deal to end sanctions on Iran. After the
meeting led by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Iranian
Finance Minister Ali Tayebnia India decided to allow the Pasargan Bank
and Parsian Bank of Iran to set up branches in New Delhi and Mumbai.
“A
major beneficiary of normalisation of banking channels between two
sides will be India which has just begun settling more than $6.5 billion
energy-related pending payment, with Iran. Currently both Pasargan and
Parsian conduct their transactions through the UCO bank of India,” said
K.L. Malhotra, convenor of the Indo-Iran Economic Cooperation Council
which was launched by Dr. Tayebnia during his visit. After the U.S. and
western powers in 2011 blocked payment channels to increase pressure on
Iran, the Reserve Bank of India created a channel for payment via
Turkey.
