Europe's big banks remain wary of doing business with Iran
A week after the lifting of sanctions against Iran, major European banks are still reluctant to handle Iranian payments as they remain wary of being the first to test the reaction of US authorities.
Despite guidance issued by the US treasury aimed at reassuring Europe that it was permissible to do business with Iran, excluding a number of entities and individuals that remain blacklisted, the continent’s big banks still err on the side of caution.
The Guardian approached 10 banks this week to see if they would process Iranian payments. The majority were unwilling to disclose whether they had plans to deal with Iran, a few said there was no change in their existing policy, and the London-based Standard Chartered, which was fined £400m by the US authorities in 2012, issued a statement to make clear it was not dealing with anyone or any entity that had anything to do with Iran.
This contrasts with the desire of European companies and European governmentsto increase trade with Iran from the current €7.6bn (£5.8bn) to the pre-sanctions figure of almost €28bn. An unprecedented number of EU business delegations have already visited Tehran and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, is expected in Rome on Monday and then Paris on Wednesday to revamp Iran’s
