UK banks to meet Kerry to discuss Iran
The British media reported on Monday that some of the country’s biggest banks have been invited to a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry to discuss the openings that the removal of sanctions against Iran have created for them over their banking transactions with the country.
Sky News reported that the British Bankers' Association (BBA) has officially invited its members to send their senior representatives to the meeting with Secretary Kerry. The meeting will take place later this week as he visits London for an anti-corruption summit.
The discussions will be held against an uncertain backdrop for UK banks, some of which are keen to do more business with Tehran but remain nervous about the consequences of deals which may be frowned upon by Washington, added Sky News.
This week's meeting will take place just weeks after the banking industry's main lobbying group moved to establish a high-level panel to navigate the removal of western sanctions against Iran.
British banks have come under pressure from the Government to expand links with Tehran.
Sources said that many BBA members, which include UK-headquartered and international banks with operations in Britain, had expressed unease about forging closer ties with Iran.
Also, UK-based exporters have reportedly complained that they have already slipped behind their competitors from France, Germany and Italy over new business opportunities in Iran.
Lord Lamont, who has been appointed as the Prime Minister's trade envoy to Iran, has already acknowledged that the UK was trailing its European rivals.
"Britain suffered a bit because the Government not only enforced sanctions but actively discouraged even legal trade while sanctions were in place, the result was that British trade collapsed by much more than that of Germany, France, Italy," he told Sky News in an interview in February.
"Even America has exported more to Iran recently than we have."
The anxiety among some London-based bankers stems both from US lenders and American executives who work for British and other international banks.
Banks including Standard Chartered have been fined heavily for breaching sanctions against Iran in recent years, adds the report by Sky News.
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