Iran International
The collapse of Iran’s Ayandeh Bank resembles a national-scale Ponzi scheme, exposing how reckless lending, political patronage, and failed mega-projects drained public wealth.
Ayandeh survived on illusion—paying old investors with new deposits while building an empire of glass and marble called Iran Mall.
Earlier this week, Iran’s Central Bank ordered its liquidation into the state-owned Bank Melli, the country’s largest financial institution.
Built on sand
Founded in 2010 by businessman Ali Ansari, Ayandeh emerged from the merger of his Bank Tat with several smaller institutions.
Within a few years, it shook up Iran’s banking sector by offering interest rates roughly four percentage points higher than those allowed by the Money and Credit Council.
The strategy drew millions of depositors and rapidly expanded its market share; by 2017, Ayandeh held 7.6 percent of all deposits in Iran’s banking system. Beneath that success lay a web of risky loans and inflated promises.
By 2020, the bank’s fortunes had reversed, and calls for its liquidation began. When it was finally folded into Bank Melli, the savings of seven million depositors were trapped in bad loans and speculative ventures.
Much like a Ponzi scheme, Ayandeh relied on a steady inflow of new deposits to pay earlier investors while channeling enormous sums into illiquid assets—mostly real estate.
Biggest Gamble: Iran Mall
Experts trace Ayandeh’s downfall to its massive exposure to real estate, especially the Iran Mall—a colossal shopping and leisure complex west of Tehran (1.95 million square meters) developed and owned by Ansari himself.
Investigations showed that roughly 70 percent of Ayandeh’s lending went to the Iran Mall Development Company, a subsidiary fully owned by the bank.
The loans exceeded the legal limit for a single borrower by more than a thousandfold—blatant self-dealing that violated banking laws capping ownership of any single shareholder at 10 percent, or 30 percent with Central Bank approval.
Ayandeh’s executives effectively lent billions to themselves, betting that post-nuclear-deal optimism and foreign investment would transform Iran Mall into a profit engine.
But after the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Iran’s economy contracted, purchasing power plunged, and foreign brands stayed away. What was meant as a monument to modern commerce became a mausoleum of financial hubris and cronyism.
Shielded by Power
Ansari, now 63, began building his empire in his twenties, founding Bank Tat in 2009 with a capital base of 2 trillion rials (about $200 million at the time) before merging it with other institutions to form Ayandeh.
Beyond Iran Mall, he owned several luxury properties, including a Tehran tower sold to convicted tycoon Babak Zanjani, who paid only one-fifth of the price.
After Ayandeh’s dissolution, Ansari claimed his “conscience is clear,” though he has faced no legal proceedings.
Rumors persist of political protection, including alleged ties to Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s son, and Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, Mojtaba’s father-in-law.
These remain unverified but reinforce perceptions that Ayandeh’s rise and fal were inseparable from Iran’s political elite.
‘People pay the price’
By the time the Central Bank dissolved Ayandeh, the bank was 550 quadrillion rials (roughly $5.1 billion) in debt.
If its real-estate assets—including Iran Mall—cannot be sold to cover liabilities, the Central Bank will have to print money to repay depositors, injecting vast sums into the economy—a “pure inflationary disaster,” as the financial outlet Bourse Press warned.
Officials have pledged that major shareholders will be held accountable and small depositors repaid first, but skepticism abounds.
Economist Ali Sarzaeem argued that the Central Bank long knew the scale of Ayandeh’s abuses but lacked the will to act.
“If the bank’s assets are overvalued or unsellable,” he wrote, “the gap between debt and equity will again be filled from the pockets of ordinary Iranians.”
The moderate-conservative Jomhuri Eslami painted an even bleaker picture: “Even more tragic is that this infection has been passed on to Bank Melli—and that bank too will sooner or later meet the same fate.”
