What it means
بانک (bank) is a European loanword that entered Persian through French “banque” (itself from Italian “banca”, meaning a money-changer’s bench). It means bank in every sense familiar in English: a financial institution where you deposit money, take out loans, and exchange currency. Because Persian has no native equivalent for the modern banking concept, this borrowed word is completely standard and carries no formal or informal register. The plural is بانکها (bank-hā).
How to use it
- باید برم بانک. (bāyad baram bank.) “I need to go to the bank.”
- حساب بانکیم رو باز کردم. (hesāb-e bānki-am ro bāz kardam.) “I opened my bank account.”
- پول رو به بانک واریز کن. (pul ro be bank vāriz kon.) “Transfer the money to the bank.”
- این بانک وام میده؟ (in bank vām mide?) “Does this bank give loans?”
Cultural note
Modern banking in Iran is governed by Islamic finance law, which prohibits conventional interest (ربا, rebā). In practice, banks reframe interest-bearing products as profit-sharing arrangements (مشارکت, moshārekat) or deferred-sale contracts (مرابحه, morābehe) to comply with Sharia. The Islamic Republic reorganized the entire banking sector after 1979 under the Law for Usury-Free Banking enacted in 1983, making Iran’s financial system structurally distinct from most other countries that use the same borrowed word بانک.