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- Saturday, 08-31-2024, PM 1:09
- Karar Al-Asadi
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During a visit to the United States, the Central Bank was content with announcing its results. Its governor, Ali Mohsen Al-Alaq, is putting the final touches before closing the electronic platform at the end of this year. Economists confirmed that the visit discussed financial auditing work on Iraqi banks and pursuing any suspicions of smuggling, going back to 3 years ago.
While one expert believed that the Central Bank succeeded in reducing currency smuggling and covering 90 percent of trade in Iraq, another pointed out that the bank’s measures contributed to the smuggling of the dollar indirectly through the currency auction.
Economic expert Abdul Rahman Al-Mashhadani says, “The visit of the Central Bank delegation to New York was to discuss the reports of international auditing companies that audited the work of Iraqi banks, especially those that were sanctioned, as an audit was conducted over the past three years, to investigate suspicions of dollar smuggling and money laundering according to the accusations of the US Federal Bank.”
Al-Mashhadani added, “The Central Bank has contracted with two companies, one of which has been auditing banks for the past three years, while the new company audits transfer requests before they are sent to the Central Bank, which in turn sends them to the Federal Reserve via the platform.”
He stressed that “the Central Bank reviewed during the visit the measures it took regarding monitoring money smuggling operations, and the work of these two companies during the past period, in order for the Central Bank to complete the issue of the platform and monitoring, especially since the two companies it contracted with are international and were auditing Abu Dhabi banks in the Emirates,” noting that “the first company is expected to complete its audit mission within three months and expectations are that it will end in mid-October or the following.”
Al-Mashhadani believes that “canceling the platform is a foregone conclusion because the Central Bank confirms that it does not fall within its work or duties, but it has adopted the issue on behalf of the banks. What is now required of the banks is to have relationships with the corresponding American banks and to make the transfer without referring to the platform and passing through the Central Bank and the American Federal Reserve.”
The Central Bank of Iraq announced yesterday the results of the visit of the delegation headed by Al-Alaq to the United States of America, which lasted from August 26 to 29, confirming that it held intensive meetings in New York, including discussions with the US Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank, in addition to meetings with a group of companies (Visa, Mastercard and MoneyGram) as well as banks (Citi Bank and JP Morgan) as well as international auditing companies (KPMG, E&Y, K2i and Oliver Wyman).
The bank also announced that its officials will meet with its international partners at the end of this year regarding the transition to ending the work of the electronic platform for foreign transfers and replacing it with direct banking relations between Iraqi banks and the network of international correspondent banks.
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For his part, financial expert Nabil Jabbar believes that “the Central Bank’s statement reviewed the positives achieved from the visit, especially the issue of stopping the platform at the end of this year and starting the natural transfer process that takes place between private Iraqi banks and foreign correspondent banks away from the platform.”
Jabbar points out that “the Central Bank has tried during the past period to expand the base of banks that deal directly with American correspondent banks, so things are positive regarding the non-sanctioned banks, but regarding the sanction, there is nothing new regarding their return to work.”
He finds that “the Central Bank’s procedures have been somewhat successful, as it has been able to make transfers to banks at a large rate that may cover 90 percent of the volume of trade in Iraq. As for the remaining trade that it has not been able to cover, it is related to countries sanctioned by the United States, such as Iran, which is what causes the existence of the parallel market and the increase in prices.”
Jabbar believes that “the Central Bank has been able to control the crisis to some extent over the past months, the most important of which is price stability. This comes from the fact that most goods enter at the official exchange rate, which is positively reflected in their prices, except for a limited group of imports affected by the parallel market.”
Since the beginning of 2023, Washington has intervened to limit the smuggling of dollars from Iraq, which led to the dollar price rising in the local market to a record level of 170,000 dinars per 100 dollars, due to the decline in the Central Bank’s sales of dollars, due to its subjection to the international “SWIFT” financial system.
The Central Bank of Iraq has been planning for months to gradually cancel the electronic platform for foreign transfers during the current year 2024, until it is completely canceled by the end of the year, and to keep it for auditing and statistical purposes, as part of its efforts to enable Iraqi banks to establish and establish relations with the global and regional banking sector.
However, economic researcher Hammam Al-Shamaa believes, for his part, that “the Central Bank did not succeed in controlling the smuggling of dollars, but rather contributed directly or indirectly to this smuggling.”
Al-Shamaa points out that “offering about $270 million per day in the currency auction is a dangerous matter, as it is a large number, especially since the fate of these amounts is unknown, although Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani previously confirmed that $50 million is enough to meet the market’s needs.”
He points out that “if these transfers go to trade and import, then where are the customs proceeds and do these numbers match the materials entering Iraq?” adding that “the issue of the dollar is ambiguous and the procedures of the Central Bank have made the matter more difficult and not easier, especially with the multiplicity of these procedures and the constant change in them.”
Experts spoke in previous reports about the continued smuggling of currency, despite controls on banks, and it is carried out via bags transported overland to Turkey and Iran, after withdrawing the dollar from the local market and not through the official dollar selling window, and specialists at the time called it “black transfers.”
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