Elaf Islamic Bank (formerly Barakaat Bank)
This page sets out what the record shows about Elaf Islamic Bank (formerly Barakaat Bank). It names the owners and managers, gives the dollars the bank bought from the Central Bank in the years whose records survive, lists the requests that the Central Bank refused and describes the action that regulators took against the bank.
مصرف إيلاف الإسلامي
Name, licence and status
- Name in English
- Elaf Islamic Bank (formerly Barakaat Bank)
- Name in Arabic
- مصرف إيلاف الإسلامي
- Type
- Islamic bank
- Iraq Stock Exchange ticker
- BELF
- Established
- 28 June 2007
- Licence
- No. 885/3/9 of 30 May 2001
- Regulatory measures
- Barred from dollar dealing by the Central Bank (July 2023); earlier US Treasury sanction (July 2012, lifted May 2013)
- Website
- www.eibiq.com
- Securities Commission page
- Iraq Securities Commissionisc.gov.iq
Ownership
The Iraq Securities Commission page names no shareholder with about 10 per cent or more. The shareholder tables of the annual reports are not yet in the record.
Owners and managers
| Name | Role | Share | As of | Legal status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chairman | Not stated | Not stated | Not charged as of the date of writing | The Arab WeeklyIraq Stock ExchangeIraq Securities CommissionCentral Bank of Iraq[1][2] | |
Qais Abdullah Sale قيس عبدالله صالح | Chairman | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
على عدنان هاشم | Chairman | Not stated | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
Ali Adnan Hashim علي عدنان هاشم | Vice-chairman | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Hussein Mohammed Karim حسين محمد كريم | Managing director | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Saad Subhi Mahdi سعد صبحي مهدي | Board member | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Taha Talib Mohammed طه طالب محمد | Board member | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Hamza Mahmoud Shamkhi حمزة محمود شمخي | Board member | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Mohammed Sadiq Al-Har محمد صادق الهر | Board member | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
Ali Hussein Jabr / Representative of Al-Mamnoun Company(company) علي حسين جبر / ممثل شركة الممنون | Board member | Not stated | 30 September 2026 | Not charged as of the date of writing | isc.gov.iq |
علي هيثم نجم | Shareholder | 28.50% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
محمد تقي عباس قاسم | Shareholder | 9.43% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
عيسى سعد عبد الحسين | Shareholder | 8.20% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
عبد الرزاق علي فريد | Shareholder | 8.20% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
عباس قاسم سلمان | Shareholder | 8.20% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
سعد عبد الحسين قاسم السراي | Shareholder | 8.20% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
عماد قاسم محمد | Shareholder | 8.18% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
أحمد عبد الحسين قاسم | Shareholder | 6.26% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
علي الرضا سعد عبد الحسين | Shareholder | 5.73% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
جعفر الصادق عباس قاسم سلمان | Shareholder | 5.31% | 28 May 2025 | Not charged as of the date of writing | mubasher.info |
Dollars bought from the Central Bank
Dollars bought from the Central Bank, by year
In millions of dollars. Verified rows of the Central Bank's daily records.
| Year | Dollars bought | Cash | Transfers abroad | Share of the year's named sales | Refused | Value of the price gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $205.3m | $165m | $40.3m | 0.4% | $80.4m | $8m |
| 2014 | $779m | $749.1m | $29.9m | 2.2% | $60m | $16.6m |
| 2015 | $943.2m | $346.4m | $596.9m | 2.9% | $0 | $37.9m |
| 2016 | $634.5m | $215.5m | $418.9m | 2.4% | Not stated | $45.2m |
| 2017 | $681.7m | $237.3m | $444.4m | 3.4% | Not stated | $27.5m |
| 2018 | $2.3m | $270,000 | $2m | 1.4% | Not stated | $72,034 |
| 2019 | $11m | $1.4m | $9.5m | 0.1% | Not stated | $65,015 |
| 2020 | $3.5m | $0 | $3.5m | 1.9% | Not stated | $113,821 |
| Total | $3.3bn | $1.7bn | $1.5bn | $140.5m | $135.5m |
Share of the year's named sales: the bank's part of all the dollars that the surviving records attribute to a named bank in that year.
Refused: the requests that the Central Bank's committee turned down. Its minutes survive only from January 2013 to February 2015. An empty cell means that no minutes survive for that year. The yearly figures come from the yearly ledger. The figure at the top of the page comes from the committee's minutes. The two can differ.
What the Central Bank refused
From January 2013 to February 2015 the Central Bank's committee recorded, day by day, which requests for dollars it turned down and why. Its minutes record 122 occasions on which the committee refused all or part of a request by this bank. On those occasions the bank asked for $986.9 million, and $140.5 million of it was refused.
The largest refusals
| Date | Asked for | Refused | The reason, as the committee wrote it | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 July 2013 | $17.9m | $17.9m | Not stated | Not stated or unreadable |
| 17 November 2013 | $8.6m | $8.6m | علم مجود اسم السفول لقالي فلى استمارة الشراء | Other |
| 6 November 2013 | $8.4m | $8.4m | نعدم تقديم صويفتا | Missing or defective documents |
| 4 November 2013 | $8.3m | $8.3m | عدم تقديم السويفتات | Missing or defective documents |
| date unreadable | $8.1m | $6m | لكون تاريخ قيد ال RTGS ل,!20) شركة افي يوم 3/6 ليوم 2014/03/08 ولتكرار اسم من شركة العلا | Same customer or name repeated; Funds did not cover the request |
| date unreadable | $5m | $5m | الاعراض تدقيقية | Held for audit |
| 22 January 2014 | $4.6m | $4.6m | يزجل في الوقت الحاض !لاغراض تديقية) | Held for audit |
| date unreadable | $8.1m | $4.3m | كد الحوالة بميب تقديم المعاملة يوم 2014/01/06 بدا يستبعد من النقد لوجود ,25! اسم مكرر | Other |
| 19 February 2013 | $4m | $4m | Not stated | Not stated or unreadable |
| 7 May 2013 | $4m | $4m | وجود عقوبة على المصرف | Penalty on, or suspension of, the bank |
| 3 September 2013 | $4m | $4m | لعدم ادراج اسم الام في الكشوفات المرفقة | Missing or defective documents |
| 10 September 2013 | $4m | $4m | لورود الطلب متأخر علما اننا طلبنا ان تقدم المصارف طلباتها في اليوم الذي يسبق المزاد | Timing or procedure |
Each reason is quoted in Arabic, in the committee's words. Where a reason is marked “punctuation adjusted”, only its punctuation was changed. The category is ours.
Enforcement actions
- 31 July 2012US TreasuryUS sanction under the Iran sanctions law of 2010: US banks barred from holding accounts for the bank
Against: Elaf Islamic Bank
Treasury found Elaf knowingly facilitated significant transactions for the designated Export Development Bank of Iran; US banks barred from maintaining correspondent accounts for Elaf.
Current position: Lifted on 17 May 2013
Original - 17 May 2013US TreasuryUS sanction under the Iran sanctions law of 2010 lifted
Against: Elaf Islamic Bank
Sanction lifted after Elaf froze Export Development Bank of Iran accounts and reduced exposure to Iranian financial sector.
Current position: No longer sanctioned by Treasury; separately barred from dealing in dollars by the Central Bank on 20 July 2023
Original - 19 July 2023US Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank of New York (as reported)Barred from dollar transactions (not announced; reported)
Against: 14 Iraqi banks (named in the Central Bank's list of 20 July 2023)
"The ban, which was imposed by the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, is part of a crackdown on the siphoning of U.S. currency to Iran" (Reuters summarising The Wall Street Journal).
Current position: See the Central Bank's list
Original - 20 July 2023Central Bank of IraqBarred from the currency window and from dealing in dollars
Against: Al-Mustashar Islamic; Al-Qurtas Islamic; Al-Taif Islamic; Elaf Islamic; Erbil Bank; International Islamic; Iraq Trans (Trans Iraq) Bank; Mosul Bank; Al-Rajih Islamic; Sumer Commercial; Trust International Islamic; Al-Mal Islamic Investment Bank; World Islamic; Zain Iraq Islamic
The Central Bank's list gives the effective date as 20 July 2023.
Current position: Listed as of 4 February 2024; Mosul Bank named in July 2026 as one of seven banks cleared to return to non-dollar correspondent channels
Original
Sources
- The Arab Weekly16 October 2025Tier DWashington sanctions expose Iraq’s shadow economy (opinion/analysis)
OriginalArchived copy“International Development Bank is restricted by the federal, but the Central Bank didn’t name it on its website.” ... According to an Iraqi security source, the Central Bank has been pressuring IDB chairman Ziad Khalaf Abed Kareem to relinquish his majority stake in the bank. ... the Iraqi Islamic Bank for Investment… Read the rest
and Development, owned on paper by Ahmad Walid Ahmad, better known as “Ahmad Abu al-Fawz” ... The Union Bank of Iraq, chaired by Ali Muften ...(punctuation adjusted) - Iraq Stock ExchangeAccessed 25 September 2026Tier BISX company profiles (companyprofile.html) for 49 listed banks: establishing date, listing date, capital, managing director
e.g. BHAM مصرف حمورابي: تاريخ التأسيس 26/08/2020؛ تاريخ الإدراج 04/08/2024 | BTRI مصرف عبر العراق للاستثمار: تاريخ التأسيس 21/05/2006 | BLAD مصرف العطاء الاسلامي: تاريخ التأسيس 06/07/2006 | BBAY مصرف بابل: المدير المفوض احمد عباس احمد / الوصي
- Iraq Securities CommissionAccessed 25 September 2026 (the page does not show the dates of disclosure)Tier BIraq Securities Commission (هيأة الأوراق المالية) listed-company pages: 'النسب المؤثرة' (significant shareholdings) and 'أعضاء مجلس الإدارة' (board) for banks
مصرف الاتحاد العراقي ... النسب المؤثرة: 1 عقيل مفتن خفيف البيضاني 13% ... 3 محمد مفتن خفيف البيضاني 13% | أعضاء مجلس الإدارة: عبد الكريم ابراهيم علي رئيس مجلس الادارة ...
Translation: Union Bank of Iraq ... Significant holdings: Aqeel Meften Khafeef al-Baidhani 13%; Mohammed Meften Khafeef al-Baidhani 13% | Board: Abdul Kareem Ibrahim Ali, chairman ...
- Central Bank of IraqAccessed 25 September 2026Tier Bالمصارف الاهلية المحلية (Private local banks: licence numbers/dates, managers, status marks)
الأقليم التجاري للاستثمار والتمويل ( اميرالد سابقا ) ... 408/3/9 2007/3/1 | الهدى ( ممنوع من التعامل بالدولار ) ... 136/3/9 2008/1/14 | مصرف بابل ( تصفية ) ( ممنوع من التعامل بالدولار ) ... المصفي، د.أحمد عباس أحمد | دار السلام للأستثمار ( حراسة قضائية ) | الشمال للتمويل والاستثمار ( وصاية ) | الطيف الإسلامي للإستثمار… Read the rest
والتمويل ( وصاية )( ممنوع من التعامل بالدولار ) | المال الإسلامي للإستثمار ( ممنوع من التعامل بالدولار ) ... 845/3/9 في 2018/12/9(punctuation adjusted)Translation: Region Trade Bank for Investment & Finance (formerly Emerald) ... licence 408/3/9 of 1 Mar 2007 | Al-Huda (barred from USD dealing) ... licence 136/3/9 of 14 Jan 2008 | Babylon Bank (liquidation) (barred from USD) ... liquidator Dr Ahmed Abbas Ahmed | Dar Es Salaam (judicial receivership) | North Bank (guardianship) | Al-Taif Islamic (guardianship)(barred from USD) | Al-Mal Islamic (barred from USD) ... licence 845/3/9 of 9 Dec 2018
Original - Central Bank of Iraq23 October 2025Tier Aالنشرة الإحصائية السنوية / Annual Statistical Bulletin (2024 data; PDF created 23 Oct 2025), banks' establishment year, total assets, paid-up capital (pages 116 to 117) and ISX listing table (p.113)
Region Trade Bank for Investment 2007 1,051,981 300,000 مصرف الاقليم التجاري( اميرالد) | AL-Huda Bank 2008 412,604 250,000 | Erbil Bank 2010 | International Development Bank 2011 | Hammurabi Commercial Bank 2020 | Ur Islamic Bank 2018 334,815 250,000
Original
In the press
- 31 July 2012Treasury Sanctions Kunlun Bank in China and Elaf Bank in Iraq for Business with Designated Iranian BanksUS Department of the Treasury