The Ansari family created its own bank, lent billions to its companies, and turned political and religious connections into protection—until the shield around Bank Ayandeh finally cracked.
The decision to dissolve Ayandeh Bank has once again brought the name of Ali Ansari, a rent-seeking and well-connected businessman, back into the headlines. Some outlets said he had left Iran; the judiciary denied it. Everyone is now talking about the man behind Tehran’s mobile market, the furniture market, Iran Mall and, finally, Bank Ayandeh. Almost no one talks about the partners and patrons who stood beside him all these years. How did a small construction trader like Ali Ansari become a billionaire banker?
A bank that should have been shut sooner
In fact, Bank Ayandeh should have been closed years earlier. At the time, the Central Bank governor described the violations at Bank Tat as “deeply regrettable” and wrote:
“How can bank funds, which belong to the public, be misused in so many ways? How can loans be given to related companies and shareholders? How can the single-beneficiary rule be ignored and more than the bank’s own capital be taken out in different forms, or even parked in another institution so that it lends to your own company?”
Yet nothing serious happened to Ali Ansari. Because of his ties with religious and military bodies, he was protected. In the same years, other businessmen with large bank debts were arrested, tried and even executed: Babak Zanjani, Hossein Hedayati, Mah-Afarid Khosravi and even Mohammadreza Zonouzi. The fact that Ansari was not touched showed how strong his safety net was, the same network that later backed him in the Iran Mall project.
Why didn’t he fall like the others?
So the main question is this: if others were prosecuted for bank debts and corruption, why wasn’t he?
Some of them, like Babak Zanjani, had sold oil and helped bypass sanctions during Ahmadinejad’s presidency, when the IRGC had a strong hold over the Oil Ministry. That was supposed to give them protection. Ansari did not have that kind of “service to the system.” Most of the Ansari family’s public “virtues” were religious: donating carpets to shrines in Iran and Iraq, building mosques, giving to religious ceremonies, and helping some charities. That alone should not have protected him for more than a decade, especially because his name had long been tied to rent and financial violations.
The key difference was in the method. Many of those who were prosecuted had taken money from existing banks. Ansari created a bank of his own so he could take public money more easily, in larger amounts, and direct it to his own projects.
A family that built itself a bank
In the 2000s, when private credit and finance institutions were multiplying with the help of powerful patrons, Ali Ansari and his relatives created Tat Ansar Investment Company and Tat Investment Group, with seven members of the family on the board. These companies later appeared among the main shareholders of Bank Tat, the private bank the Ansari family launched at the height of the boom in private financial institutions.
From the start, the creation of Bank Tat and the call for people to buy its shares raised questions. Ansari was close to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose 2009 election was widely contested. Many people saw the banking licence as a political gift to a campaign supporter, especially since the founders did not clearly have the required starting capital.
It later became clear that part of the capital had been provided through the Ministry of Sports and Youth, and that the Ansari family itself, as a main shareholder, was in debt. Because of this, trading Bank Tat’s shares on the over-the-counter market was suspended.
Several sports federations that could not cover even their basic expenses, the two indebted clubs Persepolis and Esteghlal, carmaker Saipa and Tat Investment Group all appeared among the main shareholders of Bank Tat. Even with this network, the bank did not last until the end of Ahmadinejad’s government. After multiple violations were exposed, the Central Bank forced Bank Tat to be merged into Bank Ayandeh.
At first Bank Ayandeh tried to present itself as fully independent. But through his side companies, Ali Ansari ended up controlling about 65 percent of the shares. This was despite the Central Bank’s own rule that Bank Tat, the Salehin credit institution and Bank Ayandeh could each hold at most 25 percent. Ansari even made the Tat charity foundation a shareholder, although it had said it would only stay in for a short period.
Iran Mall as the bank’s favourite client
After securing control of the bank, Ansari tied its fate to his largest showpiece, Iran Mall. From the beginning, this project was on the agenda of Tehran’s city council and parliament. Members asked why the land had been priced so low, why building permits and municipal fees were so light and how such a huge commercial complex had jumped over normal procedures. In 1397 (2018), council member Ali Atta called the scale of the ambiguities “large.” That same year, MP Ahmad Beygdeli said an inspection report showed land for Iran Mall had been handed over below real price and building fees had been paid below the real amount.
The violations were too obvious for the municipality to deny. In Tir 1399 (June–July 2020) the mayor of District 22 confirmed the violations and said the owners had paid a fine of 500 billion rials, that is 50 billion tomans (about 50 million USD at 1 USD = 1,000 tomans). But the project continued. One reason was the make-up of the board of trustees: alongside Ansari and banker Jalal Rasoulaf sat Ala Mir-Mohammad-Sadeghi, a founder of the Islamic Economic Organization and an old figure in the Islamic Coalition Party. His presence gave the project another layer of protection.
To finance this “national” project, companies linked to Ansari received very large loans from Bank Ayandeh, the bank in which he was the main shareholder. Because of this self-lending, the Central Bank tried several times to reduce the ownership of Bank Ayandeh’s main shareholders. Each time, the Administrative Justice Court cancelled the Central Bank’s decision. The bank continued to work and the financing chain stayed in place.
According to the Central Bank’s report for the first half of 1404 (2025), by the end of summer 1404 (August–September 2025) Bank Ayandeh had paid more than 140 thousand billion tomans in loans to companies that were either directly owned by the bank or closely tied to it. More than 102 thousand billion tomans of that was registered as “doubtful receivables.” In banking language this means the money has not been paid back for more than 18 months and may in practice never be collected.
The largest debtor was the Iran Mall International Development Company, the main owner of Iran Mall. This company had taken more than 97 thousand billion tomans in 135 separate loans. More than 72 thousand billion tomans of that was listed as doubtful. In other words, about 70 percent of the loans that Bank Ayandeh gave to related companies went to one project, and three quarters of it has not been repaid.
Other satellite companies of the Ansari family, such as Ayandeh Value Creators and Arian Pardis Dana, had taken nearly 20 thousand billion tomans and still owed more than 13 thousand billion tomans.
There were also other names on the list of debtors. Companies like Matrix Middle East, Nano Tejarat Middle East and Katibeh Middle East appeared several times. Together they had taken about 1.6 thousand billion tomans and by Shahrivar 1404 (August–September 2025) still owed about 1.3 thousand billion tomans. Some of these companies were run by former officials or members of the Kargozaran party. This showed that Ansari’s network was not limited to one political current.
A cross-factional shield
If you put the list of Bank Ayandeh’s big borrowers next to the list of people who attended the funeral of Ali-Akbar Ansari, the businessman’s father, the overlap is clear. Conservative business groups that operate under religious cover, technocrats from the reformist and moderate camp, people close to the Leader’s office, former ministers and mayors: all of them were there. Ansari’s method was to give every faction a share so that no faction would demand a full investigation.
This is what he himself called being “insured by Imam Hossein.” On one side there were donations to shrines, Quran institutes and mourning ceremonies. On the other side there were bank loans to companies connected to political figures from different camps. As long as everyone was getting something, no one asked why a private commercial project was receiving the bulk of a bank’s resources.
This shield began to crack after two events. First, Ali-Akbar Ansari died in Khordad 1404 (May–June 2025). Pictures from his funeral at Iran Mall showed a long line of senior political and security figures: Vahid Haqqanian from the Leader’s office, former intelligence minister Mahmoud Alavi, Seyed Ali Khomeini and several MPs. Second, Ala Mir-Mohammad-Sadeghi, the veteran member of the Islamic Coalition who sat on Iran Mall’s board, also died later that year. At the same time the Central Bank’s report on Bank Ayandeh’s loans was published. With those two protective figures gone, it became easier for both conservative and reformist media to ask why this bank had not been dissolved earlier.
Religion, charity and luxury
Part of the Ansari family’s cover was religious. In Qom they ran the “Ali ibn Abi Taleb Quran House,” which said it had held 14 national Quran competitions “in response to the Leader’s call.” Other foundations, such as the Tat Charity, were also set up. Board members in these charities were often the same people who sat on the boards of the family’s business companies. This made it possible to move money and at the same time present themselves as benefactors.
At the same time, the family owned one of the most famous luxury villas in Lavasan, the kind that even the local Friday prayer leader complained about on state TV. He said there was a 6,000 square meter palace in Lavasan belonging to someone “the state TV advertises for, he owns a bank and several markets” and that “every time we raise the name, the responsible bodies look away.” He did not say the name, but the description matched the Ansaris.
This mixture of public piety and private luxury is exactly what angered some media close to security institutions. After photos of Ali-Akbar Ansari’s funeral were published, the site Bultan News wrote that the large presence of top civilian and military officials at the funeral of a man “whose name is tied to Bank Ayandeh and Iran Mall” was in sharp contrast with the silence of those same officials about the economic accusations around these two entities. It called this “a sign of a network of relations that is stronger than any law or oversight.”
Is the protection over?
Now, with Bank Ayandeh dissolved, with the Central Bank trying to recover at least part of the losses, and with state banks unwilling to swallow all the bad loans, Ali Ansari is facing a situation he has not faced before. Even if he is rescued once more by the same hands that protected him for years, he will likely have to hand over some of his assets to the bank and to creditors. And this time he may have to appear in court and explain who else benefited from Bank Ayandeh’s money.
What is clear, and what this case shows very plainly, is this: the Ansari family did not simply take money from a bank. First they built a family investment network and put their own relatives on the board. Then they created a bank. Then the bank lent most of its money to that same network. And for years, different parts of the political system helped them do it.
