Bank Sepah

Bank Sepah was founded on 4 May 1925, initially known as Bank Pahlavi Qoshun (lit. 'Pahlavi Army Bank') in Tehran, with a capital of 388,395 tomans (3.88 million rials). It was intended to handle the financial affairs of the military personnel and set up their retirement fund. With further increase in their domain of services, the headquarters for the bank was moved to a larger building in Homayoon Street. Starting on 15 March 1926, with opening of another branch in Rasht, Bank Sepah began providing services not only to the military personnel but to the more general public such as businessmen. Also in 1926, it changed its name to Bank Sepah.

Bank Sepah opened a branch in London in 1972, which in 2002 was reorganized as a fully owned subsidiary named Bank Sepah International Plc (BSIP). It also has branches in Frankfurt, Paris and Rome.

In the early 2020s, Sepah Bank absorbed four other Iranian banks and one credit institution: Ansar Bank, Mehr Eqtesad Bank, Hekmat Iranian Bank, Ghavamin Bank and the Kosar Credit Institution. The Omid Bank app is product of Bank Sepah.

Bank Sepah maintains a museum in its former central branch in downtown Tehran, built 1950-1953 on a design by Vartan Hovanessian, immediately west of Imam Khomeini Square in Tehran. The museum maintains a collection of money artefacts since ancient times.

US and UN sanctions

Sanctions were imposed on Bank Sepah by the United States on 9 January 2007, due to Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program. The United States claimed that the bank assisted Iran in developing missiles that could carry nuclear weapons. and all its branches and subsidiaries in Italy, UK, France and Germany will have their assets frozen by the United States in order to prevent Iran from constructing nuclear weapons. The official website of Bank Sepah in Iran reacted by mentioning the American resolution "fabricated statements based on purely hypothetical pretext, made out of political inducements" and promised that the bank will "continue with its efficient performance with due observance of internal and international regulations as before."

On the same basis, further sanctions have also been imposed by the United Nations through Resolution 1747 of 29 March 2007 coinciding with the arrest by the Iranian Government of some British army personnel in the Persian Gulf. In early 2016, following the talks of P5+1 with Iran on the Nuclear program of Iran, and the resultant Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, sanctions against Bank Sepah were lifted.