AFP, May 12, 2012 – Iran’s telecommunications ministry has barred local banks, insurance firms and telephone operators from using foreign-sourced emails to communicate with clients, a specialist weekly said on Saturday.

“The telecommunications minister has ordered the use of domain names ending with .ir” belonging to Iran, Asr Ertebatat reported.

The order prohibits banks, insurance firms and telephone firms using foreign hosts for their sites or to inform their clients using foreign providers such as Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail or MSN, it said.

The weekly said that individuals seeking to communicate with such firms must now use email addresses ending with iran.ir, post.ir or chmail.ir.

Entities linked to the Iranian government must use addresses ending in gov.ir or .ir, while universities should use emails ending in ac.ir or .ir, the report added.

Iran has announced that as of May a national information network will be used to replace the Internet in the daily management of the administration of state entities, the banking system and public enterprises.

Officially, the launch of the “Iranian Internet” aims to secure communications by making them independent from foreign Internet operators.

Iranian authorities announced in December having repatriated 90% of official websites and encouraged Iranian companies to do the same.

For the past two years, Tehran has been slapped with Western economic and financial sanctions due to its controversial nuclear programme.