Middle East: Iran's Banks Struggle with Expectations

"To that effect, one anti-JCPOA lobby group in the US, United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), had by mid-October sent letters to 42 banks in 18 countries, listing all of the potential risks involved in doing business in the Islamic republic.  UANI hopes to persuade bank compliance teams that the risks are simply too high to justify interacting with Iran. One letter to Commerzbank, which UANI shared with Euromoney, mentions everything from the risk of falling foul of money-laundering regulation to the risk of employees being kidnapped... That said, the commercial, legal and political obstacles to ripping up the deal could slow Trump and the Republicans down, or even force them to reconsider their position. Mark Wallace, the chief executive of UANI, says: 'I don’t think it was a serious position to say that on day one you could go in and rip up the JCPOA. I think that was an unserious position – even as an opponent of the JCPOA, I don’t think that would have been appropriate.'"