CBI fines banks $47M in H1 2025
Shafaq News – Baghdad
The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) imposed more than IQD 66.2B ($47.3M) in fines on banks and non-bank financial institutions in the first half of 2025, marking a steep drop from the same period last year.
According to official data covering January through June, the penalties targeted violations by lenders and currency exchange firms, and were accompanied by 77 administrative measures ranging from warnings to grace periods. In H1 2024, fines reached IQD 181.8B ($130M) with 151 administrative actions.
No list of penalized institutions was released. Iraq currently has 51 privately owned banks, split between 23 commercial and 28 Islamic lenders.
Tighter compliance scrutiny has contributed to the drop in fines—in February, the CBI barred five additional banks from US dollar transactions after consultations with the US Treasury, expanding earlier restrictions on eight institutions. These steps are aimed at "curbing money laundering and illicit dollar flows"—persistent issues in Iraq’s financial system.
Joint enforcement by Iraqi and US regulators has also targeted schemes involving prepaid cards, a method armed groups and intermediaries allegedly used to smuggle dollars abroad for resale on the parallel market.
Earlier reforms further tightened rules on dollar transfers after US-created wire systems were found to facilitate opaque transactions, some allegedly tied to sanctioned entities.
