Banks Absent From UK Trade Trip to Iran Amid Sanction Concerns

From Bloomberg Businessweek –

“Twenty-five British companies were in Tehran this week on a trip organised by the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce

Major British and European banks want greater clarity on how sanctions on Iran will be lifted before they investigate openings in the country, the head of a recent UK delegation to the Islamic Republic said.

Twenty-five British companies were in Tehran this week on a trip organised by the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce. But leading banks weren’t among them, Richard Dalton, a former UK ambassador to Iran and chamber president, said in an interview in Tehran. Nor were oil majors BP and Shell, he said, though both have said they’ve visited Iran in recent months.”

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Why Hide Cyber Skirmishes With Iran?

From Bank Info Security -

Were distributed denial-of-service attacks against major American banks in 2012 waged in retribution for U.S. government actions? A top-secret memo prepared in 2013 for Keith Alexander, who was then director of the National Security Agency, seems to confirm that's the case.

It's long been widely assumed that Iranians waged the DDoS attacks, and that it was retribution for earlier assaults on Iranian IT (see More U.S. Banks Report Online Woes). This memo seems to confirm that and also answers the question of why the Iranians launched those attacks.

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Standard Chartered NY forced to suspend clearing following AML concerns

From Banking Technology

‘Standard Chartered Bank’s New York business has been fined $300 million and ordered to suspend US dollar clearing services to retail clients of the bank in Hong Kong, following an investigation by the New York State Department which determined its transaction monitoring system does not meet anti-money laundering requirements agreed in 2012.

In 2012, Standard Chartered was accused of breaching US sanctions against Iran by processing transactions to the country. Although a settlement resolved these issues at the time, Standard Chartered is now being accused of breaching that settlement, which required the bank to improve its AML processes.’

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