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Iranian banks were disconnected from Belgium-based SWIFT, the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, in
March 2012 as international sanctions against Tehran over its
disputed nuclear program tightened.
The system is used to transmit payments and letters of credit
and Iran's exclusion severely damaged its ability to conduct
foreign trade and money transfers. Under a nuclear deal reached
between Tehran and world powers, most sanctions against the
country were removed last month.
"SWIFT has completed the on-boarding process for these banks,
and can confirm that they have now been reconnected to SWIFT,"
said Onur Ozan, a country manager at SWIFT.
"We will continue to work with the remainder of the entities
that have applied to rejoin SWIFT to ensure their smooth
reconnection," Ozan said in a statement carried on the Iranian
central bank's website on Wednesday. A representative for SWIFT
confirmed that the statement was accurate.
Iran's reconnection to SWIFT became a political issue in the
last few weeks, with some conservative parliamentary critics of
President Hassan Rouhani complaining that the reconnection was
not occurring fast enough and that the nuclear deal was not
delivering enough benefits to the country.
Ozan did not give details of the Iranian banks that had been
reconnected. The central bank said in its statement that all
banks not covered by the remaining sanctions had now been
connected, including itself, but that some of the banks' foreign
subsidiaries and branches were still working on it.
Although SWIFT's action will make it easier to move money into
and out of Iran, many foreign banks are expected to remain wary
of doing business with the country, at least initially.
The nuclear deal says non-U.S. banks may resume trading with
Iran, but because Washington retains sanctions against Iran that
predate the nuclear crisis and were imposed over other issues
such as human rights, bankers are uncertain of the legal basis
for business and worry they could still be targeted by U.S.
officials.
U.S. banks remain prohibited from doing business with Iran
directly or indirectly.
(Reporting by Andrew Torchia in Dubai, David Milliken in London
and Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Keith Weir)
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