TNT:
Tishwash: Source: Al-Zaidi plans US trip; Trump meeting in works
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi plans to visit the United States after a European tour to attend the UN General Assembly in New York, with three major issues on his agenda as political efforts seek to arrange a meeting with US President Donald Trump, an informed source told Shafaq News on Friday.
The source said a political intermediary who previously helped organize Al-Zaidi’s July official visit to Washington is working to secure the meeting with Trump, which has yet to be confirmed.
If the meeting takes place, Al-Zaidi intends to discuss the withdrawal of US forces from Iraq under the agreed timetable and prospects for the post-withdrawal period, which the source said could see investment companies enter the country to begin implementing previously agreed projects.
Talks would also cover the government’s anti-corruption campaign and its next steps, including possible measures involving prominent figures suspected of corruption and several Iraqi banks, as well as the course of Iraq’s political process.
The 81st session of the UN General Assembly opened in New York on Sept. 8, with its high-level General Debate, which brings together heads of state and government, scheduled for Sept. 22-26 and Sept. 28.
Before traveling to New York, Al-Zaidi is scheduled to visit France and Germany in mid-September. Government spokesperson Haider Al-Aboudi said the European tour will focus on diversifying Iraq’s foreign relations and discussing several issues, including security.
The planned US trip would be Al-Zaidi’s second as prime minister. His first foreign visit after taking office included a meeting with Trump and produced 48 agreements and memoranda of understanding with US and international companies and institutions across sectors including energy, investment, infrastructure, technology and healthcare.
Al-Zaidi’s government program outlines a foreign policy based on balance and productive relations, seeking to keep Iraq out of regional and international rivalries. Since taking office, he has also visited Iran, Turkiye, and Qatar, while a planned trip to Saudi Arabia was canceled following joint Saudi-US strikes on Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) headquarters in Iraq that killed at least 20 members and wounded 32 others. link
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Tishwash: Officially… Al-Zaidi will travel to Paris next Sunday
The media office of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi announced on Friday evening that he will begin an official visit to France on Sunday, September 13, at the invitation of President Emmanuel Macron.
The office indicated in a statement received by Shafaq News Agency that this visit comes within the framework of strengthening bilateral relations between Iraq and France, and exploring ways to expand partnerships in various fields and sectors, foremost among them energy and security.
According to the statement, Al-Zaidi will meet with French President Macron next Monday, September 14, and they will discuss a number of regional and international issues of common interest.
The two sides will chair the expanded talks session to be held by the Iraqi and French delegations, to lay the foundations for new partnerships between Baghdad and Paris, and to discuss the general frameworks for bilateral cooperation in the fields of economy, security, energy, education, and others, in order to contribute to confronting various regional and international challenges. They will also oversee the signing ceremony of a number of memoranda of understanding in several sectors, according to the statement.
Earlier today, an informed source told Shafaq News Agency that Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zubaidi intends to travel to the United States to participate in the work of the United Nations General Assembly, following the end of his European tour, which includes France and Germany, while noting that there are efforts to arrange a meeting between him and US President Donald Trump.
Al-Zaidi had visited the United States in mid-July, at the head of a high-level delegation that included a number of ministers, government officials, members of parliament, and businessmen, on an official visit that lasted five days.
The visit focused on launching a comprehensive and diversified economic partnership to support the Iraqi economy, expand investment opportunities, revitalize the local labor market, and enable Iraq to open new outlets for exporting crude oil and increase production and refining capacities. link
Tishwash: 81 banks and financial institutions in Iraq… Why are most of them absent from global banking lists?
Iraq has a numerically large banking network, comprising dozens of government, commercial, Islamic, and foreign bank branches, but the paradox emerges when moving from the number of banks to their real weight on the international banking map; This large number is not reflected in a similar presence in the most prominent global bank rankings.
According to the approved lists of operating banks, the Iraqi banking system includes 8 government banks, 24 local commercial banks, and 31 local Islamic banks, in addition to 16 branches of foreign banks and two representative offices, bringing the total number to about 81 banking institutions and representative offices.
However, research into the most international rankings, most notably the Top 1000 World Banks list issued by The Banker magazine, which is mainly prominent based on the size of Tier 1 Capital, reveals that the Iraqi presence in the global list has remained very limited compared to the number of banks operating in the country.
One of the most prominent documented Iraqi cases is the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI), which in previous years managed to enter the list of the world’s top 1,000 banks. According to officially published data from the bank, its ranking reached 319th globally in 2020 according to the Tier 1 Capital metric, after advancing 26 places compared to the previous year.
However, this ranking is historical and should not be treated as a current ranking for 2026. Even in the latest edition of The Banker’s list, there is no documented current ranking in open public data that can be attributed to all Iraqi banks or even most of them individually.
This highlights one of the most significant problems in understanding the reality of Iraqi banks: the existence of dozens of banks does not mean that each one has a global ranking. Major international rankings are based on capital, assets, profitability, financial strength, market reach, and balance sheet quality, while the majority of small and medium-sized banks do not even appear on these lists.
The difference becomes even more apparent when comparing Iraq to the Gulf banking systems. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, while having fewer banks in some cases, have a stronger presence in global rankings because several of their banks possess significantly larger capital, assets, profitability rates, and international reach.
In Iraq, the IMF notes that the banking system remains heavily concentrated around two major state-owned banks, while private banks remain relatively small and face challenges related to limited capital, a limited customer base, and competition with state-owned banks. The IMF also pointed out that the dominance of large state-owned banks has hindered the emergence of stronger private banks.
The IMF also pointed to the need to complete the restructuring of state-owned banks, modernize the banking system, and expand international correspondent banking relationships, as essential steps for integrating the Iraqi banking sector more broadly into the global financial system.
Most telling is the risk assessment conducted by S&P Global Ratings on banking systems worldwide. In its July 2026 update, the agency placed the Iraqi banking system within the BICRA Group 10. ( S&P Global )
This ranking does not mean that Iraq is ranked tenth globally; Rather, the S&P scale ranges from Group 1 to Group 10, with Group 1 representing the lowest-risk systems and Group 10 representing the highest-risk systems. Thus, Iraq falls within the highest levels of banking risk according to this international scale.
A regional comparison reveals the widening gap. In the same S&P assessment, Saudi Arabia was in Group 3, the UAE and Qatar in Group 4, Kuwait in Group 3, Jordan in Group 6, while Iraq remained in Group 10.
This does not mean that all Iraqi banks are in trouble or in similar situations, because the BICRA rating relates to banking risks at the national and financial system levels, not to an individual rating for each bank. Rather, it reflects the environment in which these institutions operate and the strength of the surrounding regulatory, economic, and financial system.
S&P also notes that the Iraqi economy is highly sensitive to oil market fluctuations, and that its high dependence on oil and political and economic volatility affects the operating environment for banks. The agency has described the Iraqi banking environment in its reports as relatively weak compared to other banking systems.
Here the real question becomes: How many banks does Iraq have? But: How many of them are capable of competing globally?
The existence of dozens of banks does not automatically translate into a strong sector unless there are banks with large capitalizations, stable deposit bases, sustainable sustainability, strong governance, effective compliance systems, international correspondent relationships, and credit ratings comparable with regional and international institutions.
The presence of 16 branches of foreign banks in Iraq does not mean that they are included in the global classification of Iraqi banks, because the classification that a banking group such as Standard Chartered or others may have is due to the parent bank and its global group, and not to its branch operating inside Iraq as an independent Iraqi bank.
Therefore, describing all 81 banks as having a “global ranking” is inaccurate. The vast do not even appear in any of the most prominent majority rankings of the world’s largest banks, while a limited number appear only in individual international data or assessments.
Between the large number and the weak international presence, it seems that the next challenge facing the Central Bank of Iraq will not only be maintaining dozens of banking licenses, but also building a less fragmented, stronger and more competitive sector.
The ongoing reform of the banking sector may, in the next phase, lead to a restructuring of the market, capital raising, compliance and governance requirements, and perhaps reducing the number of weak banks or merging some of them, in exchange for building larger institutions that are more capable of connecting with the international financial system.
In conclusion, the situation can be summarized in one sentence:
Iraq has dozens of banks, but it does not yet have dozens of banks with global influence.
The number has reached about 81 banking institutions and representative offices, but the presence in major global rankings remains limited, at a time when the Iraqi banking system is still classified among the highest risk groups by S&P.
This puts the sector to a real test: Will the upcoming reforms succeed in transforming the “abundance of banks” into “banking strength,” or will the map of Iraqi banks witness downsizing, mergers, and extensive restructuring in the coming years link
