Women Empowerment: Iran Scheme


The scheme, launched since 1999, has been developed exclusively for women, providing them with accessibility to required banking services, exemption from payment of fees and service charges for some services to encourage national women to take a more active position in the economy. The scheme is one of the efficient means of escalating living standards of rural and urban population and elevating the social status of women. Within the framework of the scheme, women can benefit from the overall banking services such as opening different types of saving accounts and a variety of term deposits and in turn they can enjoy banking credit services, including Qard-al-Hassanah (interest free with slight percentage of service charge) and self-employment facilities. Within the last few years, the credit has been granted for purposes, mostly such as self-employment, covering education costs of children, houses reconstruction, and dowry costs contribution.