Iran's financial regulator plans mortgage-backed securities market

Iran's capital market regulator wants to develop a market for mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and has published rules covering them, the latest move by authorities to revamp the financial sector. MBS could help to stimulate the debt market and spur housing construction in the country of about 80 million people. Iran has seen some issues of MBS but on a small scale, and active trade in them has not developed. The new MBS rules, released by the SEO last week, include strong consumer protection features. They also feature some particularly Iranian aspects that make them different from similar securities elsewhere. The central bank uses tools such as reserve requirement ratios and open market operations to conduct monetary policy.