On May 4, 2020, the Iranian Parliament authorised the replacement of the rial with another basic unit of currency called the toman.
Due to American sanctions and economic mismanagement, the rial unit of currency has lost much of its value against the dollar. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have played a decisive role, contributing to a further devaluation of the rial since February 2020.
Each toman current will be worth 10,000 rials under the new system.
The change is the outcome of a draft Bill presented in early 2019 by the Governor of Iran’s central bank, Abdolnasser Hemati. He noted that the currency has been devalued 3,500 times since 1971 and that Iran had no choice but to “save the face” of its national currency.
