Iraq’s Rafidain Bank has once again run into trouble — this time it hasn’t released the December pensions, leaving thousands of retirees waiting with nothing. A source said on Monday that the bank simply doesn’t have enough cash on hand to make the payments.
According to the source, Rasheed Bank already finished paying pensions, and the General Retirement Authority confirmed it sent all the pension data to every bank. But Rafidain still couldn’t process the payouts.
The source didn’t sugar-coat it: “The delay is directly tied to insufficient liquidity.”
Retirees are angry and confused. Many said this has never happened before — other banks paid on time, but Rafidain clients were left without their monthly income. Some called on the government and parliament to step in right away and find out why the bank is failing to release the funds.
These problems didn’t appear overnight. For the past year, Iraq’s Parliamentary Finance Committee has been warning that state-owned banks — especially Rafidain and Rasheed — are under pressure. Their financial obligations are growing, government transfers are slow, and the banks are struggling to keep up.
A Central Bank of Iraq official told Shafaq News back in March that these shortages happen again and again because ministries delay sending money, people withdraw cash heavily, and the banks themselves have administrative issues that slow everything down.
Rafidain has had similar disruptions before — salary delays in September 2024 and another pension delay in December 2024. At the time, the bank blamed “scheduling problems,” but retirees say the issues seem far bigger.
All of this is happening while Iraq’s pension system is already stretched thin. The World Bank said in its 2024 Iraq Economic Monitor that pensions take up more than 13% of the entire state budget. And with more than 2.5 million people relying on these monthly payments — most of them through Rafidain — even a small delay hits a massive number of families.
