Page 36 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Iran Dec17

8.1.5 Bank news
Iran's Beijing embassy issued a statement on October 29 outlining how Iranian citizens in China are facing a slew of new banking problems related to international sanctions, according to Mehr News Agency . Iranians living in several countries around the world have faced numerous banking obstacles in recent years. There have been problematic bank account closures and the limiting of bank transfers back to Iran in relation to US extra-territorial sanctions extending to the operations of banks in third countries. The embassy in Beijing said the central issues of recent weeks pertained to the closure of Iranian bank accounts as well as to some banks refusing to accept paperwork submitted by Iranians in China. The Agriculture Bank of China and China’s ICBC bank had closed several accounts of Iranians in recent months, it added. The Iranian Foreign Office said embassy officials had raised their concerns with the Chinese authorities. The Chinese say the main problems in dealing with Iranians include a lack of transparency in trading and failures to abide by internationally agreed money laundering good practice, including that advanced by the Financial Action Task Force.
The governor of Iran's privately-owned Sina Bank, Mohammad Reza Saroukhani, has said his bank is to open a representative office in Munich in the first half of 2018, Islamic Republic News Agency reported on October 29. The Sina Bank opening will follow those of several other Iranian banks and companies that are now present in Germany. Many of these banks and enterprises are already involved in making bank transfers between Iran and Europe's biggest economy, according to sources close to these parties. Saroukhani added that Sina Bank, which is not subject to any international economic sanctions, has sent all required paperwork to KPMG for auditing, prior to the bank seeking permission to proceed with the representative office. The office is likely to be located on premises of the Bavarian Industry Association (VBW), which Saroukhani said had agreed to facilitate its opening. Sina Bank was one of the first private commercial entities to be created under the Hashemi R afsanjani administration of the late 1980s, but its growth over recent years has been exceeded by that of many newcomers in the Iranian banking industry. Private financial institution Middle East Bank Group (MEBG) of Iran is also pushing ahead with the creation of an office in Munich.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and the Turkey-based ECO Trade and Development Bank (ETDB) have signed a memorandum on strengthening bilateral ties, the CBI said on October 10. ETDB is a Eurasian multilateral development bank established on behalf of an ECO (Economic Cooperation Organisation) to promote socio-economic development and trade in developing countries. It was created in 2005 by member states and is headquartered in Sisli, Turkey with representative offices in several other countries. The agreement was signed at the CBI’s headquarters in Tehran by central bank governor Valliollah Seif and ETDB's Turkish vice president Burhanettin Aktas, who flew in to reopen the bank's Iran branch this week. The memorandum was drawn up following a clearance issued by the Iranian cabinet in September that permitted the development bank to resume operations in the Islamic Republic. It was forced to close its doors when crippling nuclear sanctions were applied to Iran. Neither side has announced how much investment ETDB intends to invest in the Iranian economy.
36 IRAN Country Report November 2017 www.intellinews.com