The banks are all the foreign branches of key Iranian banks which include the Yerevan branch of Mellat Bank, the Dushanbe branch of Tejarat Bank and the branches of Melli Bank of Iran in Baku and Baghdad.
The media quoted Hamid Baeidinejad, the Director General for Political and International Security Affairs of Iran's Foreign Ministry, as announcing that the banks could now handle a chain of overseas financial transactions. Baeidinejad emphasized that 26 Iranian banks had so far been reconnected to SWIFT after the removal of the economic sanctions against Iran in mid-January.
SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is used by nearly every bank around the world to send payment messages that lead to the transfer of money across international borders. It provides a wide range of service including transmitting letters of credit, payments and securities transactions among 9,700 banks in 209 countries.
However, it became off limits to Iranian banks in 2012 after the implementation of US-led sanctions against the country. Accordingly, around 30 Iranian banks were blocked from using SWIFT services, literally cutting off Iran from the global banking system. In mid-January, economic sanctions against Iran were lifted after a nuclear deal the country had sealed last year with the 5+1– the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany – was implemented.
A central theme of the sanctions was putting restrictions on Iran’s banking transactions with the international financial institutions through various mechanisms including closing SWIFT services to the country.
SH/PS