Iran's central bank revises rules for selling banks' surplus assets, adding tokenization and real estate funds

Iran's central bank has issued a revised directive governing how credit institutions dispose of surplus assets, in a report published on Saturday 1 August 2026. Under the amendment, banks may use instruments beyond auctions: land and building investment funds, real estate funds, asset tokenization within central bank rules, transfers to the banking network's asset management company, and in some cases negotiation or swaps.

A significant share of some banks' assets has over recent years been tied up in property, subsidiaries and non banking investments. Because these are hard to liquidate, they immobilize bank resources. The central bank presents the circular as one of its balance sheet repair tools.

The move extends a run of recent tightening measures. The reserve requirement ratio was raised in two steps of 0.75 percentage points each, 1.5 percentage points in total. Central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati and deputy governor for monetary policy Vahid Majed have both linked bank imbalances, via overdrafts from the central bank and growth in the monetary base, to inflation.