; afterwards, it showed the
emblem of Iran. s banknote of
Reza Shah era of the
Pahlavi dynasty Background The formation of a modern national bank that would keep foreign influence in check became a topic of debate in
Qajar Iran during the last quarter of the 19th century, following similar debates in the
Ottoman Empire following the establishment of the foreign-controlled
Ottoman Imperial Bank in 1863. In 1879, a proposal along such lines was made to emperor
Naser al-Din Shah by Tehran business leader Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin al-Zarb. During the
Persian Constitutional Revolution, the aspiration to financial independence became a major political issue, leading to the publication of a manifesto promoted by a group of prominent merchants in December 1906. On 23 November 1906,
Abolqasem Naser ol-Molk, the Minister of Finance of the time of
Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar, reported to the
National Consultative Assembly about the country's financial crisis and suggested a loan from European countries to deal with it, but the deputies rejected that option and, on 9 December, agreed to establish a national bank instead. But the abrupt changes in the political environment and the
Anglo-Russian Convention of August 1907 prevented that vision from becoming reality until after the
1921 Persian coup d'état and the establishment of the
Pahlavi dynasty in 1925. Soon after cementing his rule,
Reza Shah started considering a revival of the national bank project, intended as a departure from Persia's previous dependency on foreign finance embodied by the
Imperial Bank of Persia.
National bank of issue The bank was initially established as
Banque Nationale de Perse () in 1928, based on a law approved by the
National Consultative Assembly on . The bank's statute was approved by the National Consultative Assembly's Finance Committee on . The bank started operations on , originally located in the former building of the
Persian Tobacco Régie. Its initial capital was 20 million Rials, of which 8 million were paid. It soon opened two branches in addition to its head office, in Tehran's
Grand Bazaar and in
Bushehr, the country's most important commercial port. Due to the fact that there were no bank specialists in Iran at that time, the law allowed the recruitment of Swiss or German nationals for the administration of the bank. The first CEO of the National Bank, , and its vice-president, Otto Vogel, came to Iran together with other experts from
Germany. The number of bank employees on the opening day, including Iranian and German, did not exceed 27. On , the National Consultative Assembly granted Bank Melli Iran a monopoly on banknote issuance for 10 years, automatically renewable for another ten years if not formally canceled in the meantime. The BMI's first banknotes were originally intended to be introduced on , but due to delays in issuance, they were eventually issued on , the day of
Nowruz; they coexisted for several months with those of the Imperial Bank of Persia, which were officially withdrawn in September 1932. Also in 1932, the bank's long-term credit operations were spun off as the Iranian Agricultural and Industrial Bank (), later known as
Bank Keshavarzi Iran. In 1938, the bank's mortgage credit operations were similarly spun off as the Mortgage Bank of Iran, or
Bank Rahni Iran.
Isfahan (1941), and Shiraz. In 1942, the bank was renamed National Bank of Iran in line with the new
name of the country.
Since the Islamic Revolution After the Islamic Revolution, changes to the banking system were implemented in order to conform with
Sharia law in the realm of
Islamic banking and finance. The new law was passed in 1984. There are more than 3328 active branches inside, 14 active branches and 4 subsidiaries abroad and 180 offices. In 2002, BMI established a Russian subsidiary,
Mir Business Bank in
Moscow. In 2004, it partnered with
Bank Saderat Iran to establish Arian Bank in
Kabul. In 2006, it also established a branch in
Hong Kong. ==Operations==