Iranian Bank still working with SWIFT; Iran's official
Iran's Cooperative Development Bank Managing Director Hojjatollah Mahdian said that the Cooperative Development Bank is one of the few banks that still connected to the Swift system.
Speaking to ILNA news agency correspondent, he added that we also has plans to facilitate trade with neighboring countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan which are still in the early stages and will be announced as soon as they are implemented.
SWIFT 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 the 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.
Addressing the issue of FATF (Financial Action Task Force), Mahdian said "Most of economic experts and banking executives are hoping that the FATF will be approved as soon as possible."
"In such circumstances our country will also be line up with the world financial and monetary market."
On June 21, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) announced its decision to continue the suspension of counter-measures against Iran, noting the country’s progress of legislative, anti-money laundering efforts.
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