Baeedinejad: British lifting of sanctions on Bank Saderat cause for optimism  

October 30, 2016 - 8:18

TEHRAN – Days after the UK Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation announced the removal of sanctions on Iran-based Bank Saderat and London-based Bank Saderat PLC., Iran’s Ambassador to London Hamid Baeedinejad saw it as a cause for further optimism. 

“Fortunately, multi-level negotiations with the EU officials resulted in the removal of sanctions on Saderat Bank, and this can be promising and useful,” Baeedinejad told a press conference in London.
The decision was made in compliance with a European regulation published in April, which had stipulated that the sanctions would remain on the two branches until Saturday, October 22, according to a notice on Monday. 
The delisting is an outcome of the nuclear deal Iran and six world powers concluded in July 2015, granting Iran a sanctions relief in exchange for scaling down its nuclear program. 
According to an undated Official Journal of the European Union, restrictive measures against Saderat Bank were imposed in 2010 as one of the entities allegedly involved in Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missiles activities.
Saderat Bank has welcome the delisting, seeing it as an opportunity for the bank to shore up its international connections. 
Since the nuclear deal, Iran has been complaining that troubled banking relations with international banks is getting in the way of it re-engaging with the global financial system.
The development is expected to soothe the banking concern a bit at least for Saderat Bank which has 28 overseas branches.