The Ledger

Investment Bank of Iraq

This page sets out what the record shows about Investment Bank of Iraq. 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 الاستثمار العراقي

$9.1bn

bought from the Central Bank from 2012 to 2020, in the records that survive. This is a minimum.

Tier A

$1.1bn

asked for but refused by the Central Bank's committee from January 2013 to February 2015

Tier A

$350.6m

the value of the gap between the official and the market price on the dollars it bought, which went to whoever received the dollars

Tier B

Name, licence and status

Name in English: Investment Bank of Iraq
Name in Arabic: مصرف الاستثمار العراقي
Type: Private commercial bank
Iraq Stock Exchange ticker: BIBI
Established: 13 July 1993
Licence: No. ص/10/3/942/5 of 28 September 1993
Regulatory measures: Barred from dollar dealing by the Central Bank (January 2024); named in July 2026 among banks allowed back into non-dollar business (reported)
Securities Commission page: Iraq Securities Commissionisc.gov.iq

Ownership

The Iraq Securities Commission page names these significant individual holders: سردار خالد عمر with 10% and حسين صالح شريف with 10%. The page was read on 25 September 2026.

Owners and managers

Being listed here records an ownership stake or a post at the bank. It is not an allegation. Next to each name is the exact legal status. Where the encyclopedia holds a record of the name, the status comes from that record. Otherwise it reads “Not charged as of the date of writing”.

Owners and managers
Name	Role	Share	As of	Legal status	Source
حسين صالح شريف	Chairman Shareholder	10%	Not stated	Not charged as of the date of writing	Iraq Stock Exchange Iraq Securities CommissionCentral Bank of Iraq[1][2]
سردار خالد عمر	Shareholder	10%	Not stated	Not charged as of the date of writing	Iraq Stock Exchange Iraq Securities CommissionCentral Bank of Iraq[1][2]

Dollars bought from the Central Bank

Dollars bought from the Central Bank, by year

In billions of dollars. Verified rows of the Central Bank's daily records.

Source: Central Bank of Iraq, daily records of the dollar sale, compiled from the verified rowsTier A

Dollars bought from the Central Bank
Year	Dollars bought	Cash	Transfers abroad	Share of the year's named sales	Refused	Value of the price gap
2012	$10m	$0	$10m	3.7%	Not stated	$175,000
2013	$1.4bn	$117.1m	$1.3bn	3.1%	$714.9m	$65.8m
2014	$2.7bn	$857m	$1.9bn	7.8%	$307.2m	$54.9m
2015	$1.9bn	$472.6m	$1.5bn	6.0%	$60.3m	$74.5m
2016	$1.6bn	$473.5m	$1.2bn	6.2%	Not stated	$107.7m
2017	$1bn	$459.2m	$549.7m	5.1%	Not stated	$45.7m
2018	$590,960	$0	$590,960	0.4%	Not stated	$18,753
2019	$328.2m	$1.6m	$326.6m	2.9%	Not stated	$1.6m
2020	$7m	$0	$7m	3.9%	Not stated	$227,642
Total	$9.1bn	$2.4bn	$6.7bn		$1.1bn	$350.6m

Source: Central Bank of Iraq, daily records of the dollar sale, compiled from the verified rowsTier A

Source: the price gap is our calculation from the Central Bank's price and the market priceTier B

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 260 occasions on which the committee refused all or part of a request by this bank. On those occasions the bank asked for $3.7 billion, and $1.1 billion of it was refused.

The largest refusals

The largest refusals
Date	Asked for	Refused	The reason, as read from the scanned minutes	Category
6 June 2013	$43.7m	$43.7m	لعدم كفاية رصيد المصرف	Funds did not cover the request; Missing or defective documents
8 June 2013	$21.8m	$21.8m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
11 June 2013	$21.6m	$21.6m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
9 June 2013	$21.1m	$21.1m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
15 September 2014	$32.8m	$20.1m	20,117,000 لاغراض تتقيقية	Held for audit
date unreadable	$19.4m	$19.4m	استه الة لم المصرف لكتم الصرف 2943 فى 2093/11/12	Other
17 June 2013	$18.5m	$18.5m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
date unreadable	$26.9m	$17.3m	متبعاد جزء من الحوالة لا غراض تدقيقر من النقد لاعراض تدقيقي	Held for audit
12 June 2013	$16m	$16m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
24 June 2013	$15.9m	$15.9m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
13 June 2013	$15.9m	$15.9m	لاغراض تدقيقية	Held for audit
25 December 2014	$20.8m	$15.4m	وستعمة ملسلغ 22001 ميامد كلى شركة المتاء تكرار اسماء وشركة الجزائر والبرق لاغراض تحقيقية	Same customer or name repeated; Held for audit

The reasons were read from scanned pages of the Central Bank's minutes, the reading may contain errors, and the scanned page is the authority. Each reason is given in Arabic. Where a reason is marked “punctuation adjusted”, only its punctuation was changed. The category is ours.

Source: Central Bank of Iraq, daily minutes of the committee that ran the dollar sale, from January 2013 to February 2015Tier A

All the refusals, day by day

Enforcement actions

29 January 2024Central Bank of Iraq
Barred from the currency window and from dealing in dollars
Against: Investment Bank of Iraq; Union Bank of Iraq; Kurdistan International Islamic Bank; Ashur International Bank; Al-Huda Bank; Al-Janoob Islamic Bank; Al-Arabiya Islamic Bank; Hammurabi Commercial Bank
The Central Bank's list gives 29 January 2024 as the date for all 8 banks. Reuters reported the ban on 4 February 2024.
Current position: Investment Bank of Iraq, Kurdistan International Islamic, Al-Janoob, Al-Arabiya named (anonymous Central Bank source) among seven banks cleared July 2026 to return to non-dollar correspondent channels
Original
18 July 2026Central Bank of Iraq / US Treasury (understanding)
Partial return: restricted banks allowed back into correspondent banking in currencies other than the dollar
Against: Seven restricted banks (named by an anonymous Central Bank source): Al-Janoob Islamic; International Development Bank; Mosul Bank; Al-Mashreq Al-Arabi Islamic; Investment Bank of Iraq; Kurdistan International (Islamic) Bank; Al-Arabiya Islamic
The Central Bank's statement confirms the understanding but does not name banks; names come from Asharq Bloomberg's anonymous Central Bank source. Access to dollars not yet restored as of the statement.
Current position: Pending eligibility for dollars
Original

Sources

The documents behind this page, with the words quoted from each.

Iraq Stock ExchangeAccessed 25 September 2026Tier B
ISX 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 B
Iraq 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 B
المصارف 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 A
النشرة 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