Once limited to big-ticket items like furniture or electronics, installment purchases are now being used to pay for daily essentials, from fruit and rice to detergent and chicken.<\/p>\n
According to Etemad, field reports from Tehran and other cities suggest that even small neighborhood grocers and butchers are offering informal credit lines to loyal customers, often without collateral, checks, or formal agreements \u2014 simply on trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey come every week and settle their bills at the start of the month, once salaries come in,\u201d said one Tehran shopkeeper. \u201cIt\u2019s like an installment plan \u2014 just between us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strain breeds new norms<\/p>\n
The practice, known locally as \u201chesab-daftari\u201d (ledger credit), is expanding rapidly amid what economists describe as a deepening period of stagflation \u2014 a toxic mix of high inflation and economic stagnation. The article says the shift reflects a broader trend: the normalization of debt as a tool for day-to-day survival.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, installment buying was for luxury goods,\u201d Etemad cited Ahmad Janjan, an economist based in Tehran. \u201cNow it\u2019s a way to afford bread and shampoo.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that this shift is driven primarily by falling real wages, lack of liquid savings, and the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n
From credit apps to corner stores<\/p>\n
While fintech platforms like Digikala and Snapp Pay \u2013 Iran’s top online markets — have introduced digital installment options with slogans such as \u201cno check, no guarantor,\u201d it is the informal, person-to-person credit that is becoming more prevalent.<\/p>\n
Some meat shops now allow buyers to split payments for poultry and beef. In produce markets, fruit vendors maintain handwritten tabs for repeat customers. Others offer agreements on mutual trust, sometimes in exchange for steady patronage.<\/p>\n
‘Buy now, pay more’<\/p>\n
But not everyone is embracing this development as a lifeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shirt I bought online cost me 1,500,000 rials (about $2) more than in the store,\u201d one customer wrote on social media. \u201cBut the store wouldn\u2019t sell in installments. I had no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others raised concerns about hidden fees and rising consumer debt. \u201cThis isn\u2019t just delayed payment,\u201d another user commented. \u201cIt\u2019s disguised interest \u2014 and it adds up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Etemad cited Iranian economists as warning that while installment buying can temporarily soften financial blows, it also carries long-term risks in the absence of consumer protections or reliable credit scoring systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are no unified regulations on this,\u201d said Janjan. \u201cPeople may end up with debt they can\u2019t service, all for everyday necessities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The growing reliance on credit is also changing spending behavior.\u00a0Morteza Afghah, another economist, told the daily, \u201cYou get what you need today, but repayment obligations can pile up and strain households even more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afghah links the trend to “deep-rooted structural issues, including political instability, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and unstable regulation \u2014 all of which raise production costs and feed into the country\u2019s chronic inflation.”<\/p>\n
He warned that installment-based purchases\u00a0are becoming more diverse fast, attributing the trend to what he called “stagflation.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not only facing inflation and recession at the same time, but their combination \u2014 stagflation \u2014 has become a chronic condition in Iran\u2019s economy, making it more difficult and time-consuming to address.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once limited to big-ticket items like furniture or electronics, installment purchases are now being used to pay for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-44386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}