Info:
Bank Pasargad is a major Iranian privately controlled bank. It is the fifth privately owned bank established after the Islamic Revolution, established in 2005 as part of the second round of the government’s issuance of permits for private banks;
During the time of its establishment, in August 2005, its initial capital was approximately 270 million dollars;
One of the bank’s founding members and its current CEO and vice chairman of the board of directors, is Dr. Majid Ghassemi, formerly the governor of the Central Bank of Iran between the years 1986-1989;
According to its 2015-2016 annual report (the latest publicly available report), the bank employs 3685 employees in 327 branches spread throughout the country. In March 2016, the bank’s capital worth was 50,400 Billion Rial;
Pasargad bank is affiliated with “bad elements” in the Iranian Regime. Namely the IRGC and Khamenai’s economic empire;
Bank’s relationship with Halkbank that it was involved in illicit and illegal activity to aid its shareholders as well as the Iranian Government;
Bank Pasargad is a privately controlled bank, but it is involved in corruption and lack of transparency that epitomize the Iranian banking system;
The bank’s dealing with Halkbank (that it was involved in illicit and illegal activity to aid its shareholders as well as the Iranian Government) and the fact that the IRGC and other “bad elements” are among his shareholders, are a perfect example of just the interests of the private banking sector with those of the Iranian regime;
As part of the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran, added on November 5, 2018 to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freezing its assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting transactions with U.S. parties, pursuant to Executive Order 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism; foreign parties facilitating transactions for the entity or otherwise assisting the entity are subject to U.S. sanctions; also designated pursuant to the Iranian Financial Sanctions Regulations; foreign financial institutions facilitating transactions for the entity may be prohibited from opening or maintaining correspondent or payable-through accounts in the United States;
Industry:
Banking, Financial services
Also Known As:
BPI
Established:
14 December 2005
Country:
Iran
Address:
430 Mirdamad Boulevard, Tehran, Iran
Number of locations:
327 branches across Iran
Number of emplyees:
3685
Phone:
82890
Website:
en.bpi.ir
E-mail:
bpi.ir
Person of interests:
Seyyed Kazem Mirvalad, (Chairman);
Dr Majid Ghassemi, (CEO);
Reason for the color:
» Added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on October 8, 2020 pursuant to Executive Order 13902, which provides authority to identify and impose sanctions on key sectors of Iran’s economy in order to deny the Iranian government financial resources that may be used to fund and support its nuclear program, missile development, terrorism and terrorist proxy networks, and malign regional influence;
Under the provisions of E.O. 13902, the Secretary of the Treasury identified the financial sector of Iran’s economy as an additional avenue that funds the Iranian government’s malign activities;
The banks sanctioned today are subject to the supervision and regulation by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), which was previously designated under E.O. 13224 for providing support to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), its Qods Force (IRGC-QF), and its terrorist proxy, Hizballah;
» Added to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on November 05, 2018;;
» The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed Bank Pasargad from the List of Specially Designated companies, January 16, 2016;
» Added on 2012 to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list maintained by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freezing its assets under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting transactions with U.S. parties;
» Saman majd Investment Company owns shares in Pasargad Bank;
» Kharazmi Investment Company (KHIC) Owns 7% share in Pasargad Bank;
» Pasargad Bank is major shareholder at Iranian Reinsurance Company;
» IRGC Controls Iranian Reinsurance Companies;
» A report from October 18, 2011 about the new billionaires of Ahmedinejad’s tenure as president, questioned the unexplained growth in Pasargad Bank’s capital and worth. The article claimed pointed to the fact that during Ahmedinejad’s presidency, in a rather obscure way, the bank’s value rapidly increased and is now worth twenty times more than it was five years ago (from 350 billion Tuman to over 6,000) turning it into the largest bank in Iran (in 2011). The strange thing about this growth, is that many of the projects that the bank invested in are still in their initial;
» According to reports from January and May 2014, a company controlled by Setareh Mansubi, one of Pasargad Bank’s shareholders, allegedly bribed high level officials in exchange for an exclusive concession worth 640 million Euro to import Animal feed and other basic goods worth. According to Ghollam Hossein Ajehi, Iran’s attorney general, mentioned that not only was it suspicious that such credit was given to just one person, but it was also given to someone who had an enormous debt;
» The Bank that was supposed to provide this credit was Pasargad Bank. A shareholder of the bank providing the credit, was also chairman of the board of the Company that was receiving the credit;
» According to reports, Mansubi was able, despite the sanctions that were placed on Iranian banks at the time, to secure a directive from the Minister of Industry, Mines and Commerce, allowing it to pay 80 million Euros via Turkey’s HalkBank. This, when the rest of the importers were forced to make payments through China and other go-betweens which forced them to pay additional and very expensive commissions;
» In a related issue, between the years 2012 and 2013, Halkbank was helping Iran to circumvent sanctions by carrying out various transactions, among them “gas-for-gold” transactions;
This was part of the activity of a wider network of Turkish front companies that were involved in circumventing sanctions. The modus operandi of this network was to issue invoices for fake transactions for goods that were permissible for Iran under international sanctions. According to reports, Pasargad Bank was involved in such activities on a regular basis. According to a leaked Turkish Prosecutor’s report, in May 2013 an invoice was issued by a luxury yacht company for the sale of nearly 5.2 tons of brown sugar to Pasargad Bank via Dubai with Halkbank serving as the go-between. This way, the Turkish network managed to bypass sanctions, and allowed the Iranian banking system that had been cut off from Swift services to move funds through companies in Turkey and money exchange houses in Dubai. Using such methods, funds made their way to various Iranian banks — including Karafarin, Pasargad, Parsian, Saman, and others;