Iran’s chief banker blames US-based website for currency turmoil

The governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has blamed a US-based website for the current turmoil in the country’s currency market.

Mohammad Reza Farzin said on Monday that Bonbast.com, which has been used as a reference for hard currency prices in Iran in the past several years, and its Telegram channel have been creating chaos in the currency market in Iran by announcing artificial prices.

“The Bonbast channel that sets the dollar rate for Iranian exchange shops at 9.00 a.m. in the morning is registered in America and all of its servers are also based in America,” said Farzin.

“There is no trade in the morning (but) this website sets the rate and all exchange shops in Iran follow that rate,” he added.

The chief banker said the Telegram channel has been deliberately set up to control the market and to give wrong signals to the traders.

The remarks came amid efforts by the CBI and the Iranian finance ministry to create more discipline in a forex market where prices have risen consistently in recent weeks.

Reports on Sunday said the government had started to inject hard currency into the market to control the prices.

The CBI announced earlier this month that it had launched a new exchange market where exporters and importers could negotiate and agree on hard currency prices.

The lender said the rates in the new market could become a benchmark for official currency rates in Iran.

The US dollar was hovering around 820,000 Iranian rials at the close of trade in the free market on Monday.

That comes as the price in the CBI-controlled market was 640,000 rials per US dollar.

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