The Governor of Iran’s Central Bank Valiollah Seif met with British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in Tehran on Sunday.
Following the meeting Seif told the reporters that out of four Iranian banks in the UK, two will resume operation namely Bank Melli, and Persian International Bank.
The Iranian official also added that the British are interested in investing in Iran’s stock market as Hammond was accompanied by Treasury Minister Damian Hinds, Simon Walker, Director-general of the Institute of Directors; Anthony Browne, Chief Executive of the British Bankers' Association; Graham Cartledge, Chairman of the Architects Benoy, Edward Daniels, Shell's Executive Vice-President for Commercial and New Business Development; an unnamed senior manager at Amec Foster Wheeler, the FTSE-100 energy infrastructure group; Vikas Handa, an executive at Weir Group, which provides services to the oil and gas industry, and Simon Moore, International Director of the CBI.
The Iranian official also recounted that the British are seeking reopening of their banks in Iran and the new Iranian regulations have been explained to them.
The two sides have agreed to remove the obstacles in a bid to ease the expansion of economic ties in post-sanctions era.
Since reaching the JCPOA on July 14, Germany, France and Italy have sent delegations to Iran, with the respective high level government delegations travelling with leading corporate names in an effort to position themselves for lucrative post-sanction deals.
The UK faces the danger of falling behind its European rivals and some Londoners have already expressed concern that Britain risks missing out on the potential of business deals with Iran because it is slower to exploit such opportunities than European competitors.