Central Bank of Iran unveils fintech policy

The CBI aims to clarify its stance about the role of the regulatory body and define non-bank firms and banks relations among other issues.

The CBI has made it clear that it will neither establish a new institution for supervising fintechs, nor would it issue licenses for the operation of financial services providers. Instead, it would devolve the responsibility to authorized financial institutions.

In the new model, the central bank will define roles and regulatory frameworks, without directly getting involved in the process of authorizing innovative financial services.

Banks and other financial institutions are permitted to outsource their operations to innovative companies. However, they are the sole bodies in charge of their customers’ data and will be held responsible for any fraud, abuse or data leak.

CBI will remain in charge of providing access to payment system data, as users and acquirers’ information are confidential by law.

The document also stresses that innovative services should not involve money creation, currency exchange, offering payment tools (like cards) and attracting deposits.

Financial services providers are also required to identify users of their services and keep track of all their operations.They might be asked to provide the records to CBI.

The regulatory body believes that the new model will also ease access to the nationwide payment and interbank networks.

In the new model, fintech firms need to link up with banks if they intend to offer banking services and those active in the payment sector need to work with either banks or companies providing payment services.