Mahmoud Vaezi, Iran’s Minister of Communications announced that Iran’s Post Company has partnered up with a foreign company to distribute international credit cards in the country.
Iran’s Minister of Communications stated that Vision Card Iranian, a name chosen for international credit cards for Iranians, is now being issued through some of the branches of Iran’s Post Company. “These international credit cards would solve people’s problem with international payments, and foreign trips to some point,” said Vaezi during the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s smart postal services. Vaezi stated that the cards would be charged with Iranian Rial and could be used in 210 countries which MasterCard is operating in.
According to the Director of Iran’s Post Company they were negotiating to bring international credit cards since a year ago. “These cards come in bronze, silver and gold plans which would have a credit limit up to 10 thousand dollars,” said Mehri, Head of the Post Company. These cards are not actually a credit card with credit functionality but are rather a prepaid credit card (debit card functionality). Right now only two branches of the Post Company are issuing the cards but according to Mehri the cards would be available in 150 cities of the country by the end of the summer.
Because of the sanctions which had isolated the country through out the past couple of years, Iranians had to ask for credit cards from third party companies in Iran which had partnerships with banks and financial institutes in the neighboring countries. These companies let the users to order credit and debit cards in their name and charge the account in Rials. Even though the currency price for charging the accounts are higher, it’s still a problem solver for the Iranians who need a way to make international payments.
Distribution of local debit cards are also a topic which is being discussed these days in Iran. Last year a few of Iranian banks started to offer local credit cards to the employees of some of the private and government institutions as a pilot program. Iran’s Central Bank is now said to be planning to offer these cards to the public.
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