– After US decision to leave JCPoA there were anticipations on the future status of foreign companies’ participation in Iran Economy who have mutual ventures with the Iranian side. Below table demonstrates a clear picture of whether these companies will stay, leave or are under special considerations to work with Iran.
– Following its strategic plans in regards to developing new underlying assets in derivative contracts, the first Saffron Futures Contracts for delivery in September will be launched on Iran Mercantile Exchange since this Wednesday. Over the past months, negotiations have been held with practitioners in the agriculture space, bodies involved as well as brokerage firms in Tehran and Mashhad. Each contract size will be 100 grams of saffron as the underlying asset with daily price fluctuation range of 3%.
– After the previous successful underwriting of IRR 4,500 bn (USD 107.14 mn) worth Sukuk Ijarah for Iran Telecommunication Company, a new round of corporate Sukuk Ijarah (equity backed) now worth IRR 8,000 bn (USD 190 mn) is to be published on Tehran Stock Exchange. The underlying asset of this new issue is 567,818,866 shares of HMRZ1 priced at IRR 14,089 apiece. The yield would be 16%, payments scheduled for every 3 months (quarterly) and these securities will be matured in 4 years.
– Today a new piece of corporate Sukuk is to going to be underwritten on Iran Fara Bourse. The new Ijarah Sukuk securities will be issued by Saba Naft construction and engineering Co and have a nominal yield of 15%. With a maturity of 48 months and coupon frequency of 3 times per year (quarterly), SN1Q1 securities worth IRR 920 bn (cUSD 21.9 mn).
– In a meeting with the parliament members, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran provided the latest monetary and currency data on provision and allocation of resources to organize the FX market and un-supervised financial institutes; he then announced the implementation of a new oversight model, which is based on EU standards; the said model will allow the kind of supervision where goals like monetary stability is sought.
– A banking official stated that charging higher fees on banking services (mostly transactions of POS, etc.) can lead to lowering interest rates on granted facilities; in fact, he said that in case this process continues for 3 years, the interest rate might come down to 14% and the rate on facilities would also reduce to below 10% in Iranian banking sector. The current imbalanced situation for on-account risk-free deposit rate (20%) and banking facilities (around 28%) led most banks to their incompetence.
– In its attempts to reintegrate into the global economy by re-engaging the FATF and getting off its so-called blacklist after implementing the JCPoA, the Iranian parliament members voted “Ay” to a general reform plan for counter-terrorism financing standards with regards to FATF standards, details to be discussed on the session tomorrow or next Sunday.
– The Central Bank of Iran announced the halting of Gold coin presales with different maturities, stressing that there is no limitation with regards to the nation’s gold reserves; this body is determined to continue its oversight over the market and in case needed, it will intervene either through auctions or presales. Over the last few days “Bahar Azadi” gold coins hiked meteorically and prices reached IRR 22,000,000 level. It seems that USD speculation demand is now directed to the gold market and the CBI decision is to put a cap on that for now.