Russian rating agencies' admission to Iran would speed up development of interbank cooperation - MP
MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) - Interbank cooperation between Russia and Iran is being stalled by the lack of international auditing of Iranian banks; access of Russian agencies and auditors to Iranian banks would make them transparent and understandable for the Russian financial sector, Anatoly Aksakov, the head of the State Duma Financial Market Committee, said.
Aksakov paid a visit to Iran as part of a State Duma delegation headed by its chairman, Vyacheslav Volodin, on Monday.
"In order to have confidence in Iranian banks, we need to convince them to accept our rating agencies - international rating agencies do not work with them, so they should let our experts enter. If they rate these Iranian banks, interest in them will drastically increase," Aksakov said in response to a question from Interfax.
It is also necessary to agree on the rules for the recognition of auditing, as the four leading auditing companies do not work in Iran, he said.
"Our respectable companies should agree that auditing by Russian companies could be conducted in Iran and identify auditors which we could recognize," Aksakov said.
"Auditing is very important; the chairman of the Iranian Chamber for Commerce and Industry talked about transparency, and transparency means auditors. And we're unaware [of transparency in Iran], because there is no international auditing [in the country] and we don't know whether we should recognize local auditing. Our banks, which are ready to cooperate with Iranian banks, have international auditing, while Iranian banks are a 'cat in a bag,' we don't know what they are," the lawmaker said.