TEHRAN: President of Central Bank of Austria said opening a joint account between central banks of Iran and Austria has been put on the agenda. Ewald Nowotny, President of Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB) as the central bank of Austria, said fruitful meeting have been held with Governor of Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif in line with expansion of banking relations between the two sides. He noted that the meetings mainly aimed at implementing earlier agreements and rejoiced to say “some Austrian banks, like Ober Bank and Raiffeisen, hold ties with Iranian counterparts. The official pointed to membership of Austria in Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union saying “European Central Bank mainly seeks to maintain price stability and pursues expansionary policies in view of current global economic crisis and its effect of economies of countries.”
Nowotny further elaborated on huge differences between European and American banking systems stressing that these contrasts affect how regulations and policies are made. He underscored that ratio of bank assets to GDP in Europe was appropriate and voiced satisfaction towards the single supervisory mechanism used in Europe; “presently, the European Central Bank sets policies for 108 banks and possesses 80 percent of their assets.” OeNB President said described reducing volume of outstanding loans in banks as a major issue saying “the issue of reducing non-performing loans is also significant for the Iranian economy as stated by the report of International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
