FX Market in Iran since 90's

No one knows, when Iranian began to trade in retail Forex market, but the truth is that they have been active in this market since late of 90's.

At the beginning, many people were involved in this business as IB, Trader and Trainers. However many of them didn’t know what FOREX is and there was plenty of misunderstandings. Companies were registered just as general commercial identities or many other unrelated titles. Three years ago with establishment of PFK in Tehran the first official company about Forex finally appeared in Iran. Following its steps, other companies and individuals felt encouraged to present their services in public as real enterprises. Also, many tried to register a legal identity to act as a FX broker in Iran. But the main problem was about undefined subjects in Iran Securities and Exchange's law (SEO). Retail Forex as a new phenomenon has never had any specific legal definition in Iran. All of them had to play with words to register a company to be allowed to work in FX, on one hand. But, on the other hand, they had to be careful in choice of the subject of their companies to avoid applying for an undefined license from Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO)!

It must be considered that some companies were trying to make connections with governors in CBI and SEO during this time to define clear rules about retail Forex. Obtaining a specific license for FX brokers had been on the top of their wishes, but …

Unhappy Norouz for Forex

Unfortunately as soon as Norouz started (New Year of Farsi Speaking people - This holiday lasts around 2 weeks in Iran), most of Iranian and international websites about FOREX were filtered by Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance without any previous announcements. Some people tried to understand what was truly happening on that time but no one was responsible.

After the holiday, General Secretary of Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO), in a public interview, explained about "Jihadi goals" of SEO in the Year of Economic Adjustment. One of the goals was about FX. He claimed that all FX companies are working illegally and declared Forex is a fake market! Immediately after that, governmental media started to publish reports about Forex disadvantages with similar intents. Besides, some other governors tried to prove the idea that Forex is already illegal in terms of current rules and laws of SEO.

Moreover, an announcement about FX published by SEO to state how government is seriously aiming to stop FX companies from working in Iran. It was mentioned as well in the announcement that new rules and regulations will be made soon.

After 45 days, there isn't any update yet or even new announcements.  It seems there were some ideas to make people believe that FOREX is illegal, but they are now too busy to arrange them. 

At first, most of companies continued working. They were supposing that, as it was not a law yet, they would have time to claim before any law could be made in Supreme Committee of Exchange. But they were all wrong! When Karamad Broker's office was closed by Tehran's prosecutor order, Mr. Karamad arrested and many pictures of his office published in governmental media, everyone understood what was going on. IBs and brokers started to stop working one by one. However it seems that some are still working underground while they have written in their websites that they are not active any more.

Future of Online Currency Market in Iran

Now SEO looks silent about FOREX, but actually they have done whatever they wished. The main purpose was to remove a rival for Tehran Stock Exchange. Brokers can not have any branch or office in Iran anymore and high level IBs cannot have their own offices. Market is going to turn back to 6-7 years ago in Iran with real person IBs and underground education with weak qualifications. The most professional companies will move to other areas like Persian Gulf's countries.

Anyway market is not going to die in Iran but the size of market would not grow with the last 3 years' pace. Nobody can stop individuals to trade in FX and Iranians have learnt how to deal with these kinds of limitations. At the moment, Facebook is filtered in Iran but it’s the 5^th most visited website in this country. Also Google does not let its advertisers to show their ads in Iran territory, but Iranians still see ads in Gmail, Google and even other websites that cooperate with Google!   

Living with complicated structures and situations has taught Iranians during hundreds of years how to continue their normal life with ups and downs. If FX has been popular up to now, it would be in the future too.       

TradingAge Policy

These days we have been asked about the future of www.TradingAge.com and Currency Trader Magazine Farsi Edition (www.currencytradermag.ir). Fortunately, www.TradingAge.com is not filtered in Iran and everything goes normal for us. Any change in our plans is considerable in month of December to be done in the year after.

There are more than 100 million Farsi speaking people in all around the world who mostly live in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, USA, Europe, Australia, Malaysia and UAE. We do respect to all rules and laws, but as an independent Farsi media we are not going to stop any of our services because of what happened in Iran.

Even now we are working on a plan to add new service about producing Farsi technical and fundamental daily analysis. We have been publishing Farsi economic news and other companies have been sharing their own daily market analysis in www.tradingage.com since three years ago. But as the consequence of closing some Iranian companies, market would be in demand of Farsi analysis.