Dr. Saeed Mostashar, CEO of Iran- Venezuela Bi-National Bank, gave a lecture on international joint banking, challenges and Opportunities ahead. He said the goals I want to achieve in this presentation are:

The first is to study the mission and role of these banks as development institutions, the second is to study the legal environment of bi-national banks, the third is to study the challenges and opportunities that bi-national or multinational banks face and finally to provide policy proposals regarding bi-national banks.

The lecturer mentioned that there is only one bi-national bank in the country's banking system, while this is different in other countries and these conditions must be changed and improved. In the field of banking there are three sectors: first, commercial banking, which are around us and provide banking services to the people.

Second: development and state-owned banks that work to develop a certain part of the economy and their main goal is not to make a profit, but to pursue development goals.
Third: investment banks, which are known as financing companies in Iran.

He also said beside these banking areas, there is a series of development financial institutions that are state-owned institutions in terms of their structure, some of which operate in the form of banks and some in the form of institutions.

The second part of his presentation was about the role of bi-national banks in the development of foreign trade. To better understand the example of Iran- Venezuela Bi-National Bank, he said this bank is naturally active in providing services to other companies in the country, moreover in the field of facilitating trade, financing economic activities in Venezuela and defining preferential facilities it is active, too.

Different aspects of the international presence of bi-national banks were also discussed in four sections, which are as follows:
1) Observance of precautionary regulations of the central bank of the investee country
2) Simultaneous admission to stock exchanges in several countries and observance of disclosure regulations and capital classes
3) Management of foreign exchange risk, correspondence of deposits and foreign exchange facilities
4) Observance of the laws and the rights of the companies and the tax laws
The third part of his presentation was about the bi-national and multilateral banks in terms of structure and composition of shareholders, saying in general we have several types of bi-national banks. For example, Iran- Venezuela Bi-National Bank is a joint venture with the Export Development Bank of Iran and Bandas Bank of Venezuela.
He mentioned of the serious problems we have in this area is that our banking regulations do not differentiate between commercial development and bi-national banks, so it is one of the serious limitations.

Regarding the opportunities of the bi-national bank, Dr. Mostashar pointed to the following features:

1) Attracting foreign investment
2) Facilitating political and economic relations with neighboring countries and allies
3) Establishing a position and strengthening economic and political stability at the international level
4) Establishing incentive policies by governments to develop trade relations between countries through the capacity of bi-national banks
5) Creating an opportunity to increase commission and non-common income due to the growing trend of payments and foreign exchange liabilities
6) Increasing the share of the country's banking system in international currency exchanges
7) Strengthening political, social and economic credibility and reducing investment risk in countries by developing bi-national banks
8) Getting familiar with the regulatory system and understanding the custom of international trade in common markets