Iranian Banks’ H1 Lending Up 45%

Financial Tribune- Banks doled out 2.2 quadrillion rials ($73.2 billion) in loans during the first half of the Iranian fiscal year that ended  September 21, marking 45.4% growth compared to the same period last year.

Data released by the Central Bank of Iran shows that the total number of loan recipients reached 3.6 million during the six months.

Regarding the purposes of lending, the CBI notes that about 65% of the loans were for meeting the needs of businesses for working capital. Business start-up loans were the reason for 8.5% of the total lending in the period, the CBI website reported on Sunday.

Services sector solely took out 41% of the loans during the six-month period. Banking system extended credit to more than 1.8 million firms in the services category.

Numbers also show that 28% of the loans were offered to “industries and mining” sector. Banks paid 653 trillion rials to 140,000 industrial units in the half-year period.

Housing and construction sector accounted for 9.6% of the total credits.