May 26, 2018
The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has accused Bank of America of joining a handful of other American and Canadian banks discriminating against Iranians by closing their accounts.
US sanctions rules do not restrict banking by Iranian-Americans or Iranian citizens who are resident in the United States, but bar Iranians who live in Iran from holding US banking accounts and impose some other restrictions on banking transactions with Iran.
Over the years, the lawyers for a few banks in both the US and Canada have become very sensitive to the actual residency of their account holders who were born in Iran.
NIAC said it sent a letter May 8 to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan calling for an immediate end to the bank account closures. NIAC didn’t say how many closures it had learned of.
The bank’s actions have stunned and alarmed customers of Iranian descent, according to Jamal Abdi, executive director of NIAC Action.
“To be honest, it feels like a personal attack on all of us,” Abdi told Forbes magazine. “We understand that fundamentally the issue is with the labyrinth of US sanctions in place that are supposedly aimed at Iran’s government. But that’s no excuse for Bank of America to err on the side of discrimination and punish ordinary people. There’s a profound sense of insecurity that — because of your heritage or geopolitical disputes among governments — you may suddenly find out you’ve been blocked from accessing your own money. You may not be able to pay for groceries or rent.”
Over the past six years, Abdi said, his organization has fielded similar complaints against Chase, TCF Bank in Minnesota, HSBC in Britain, the Bank of Hawaii and TD Bank. The last is based in Toronto but has branches in the United States. It closed some accounts held by Iranian-Canadians in its Canadian branches. That is five banks out of 6,800 in the United States. Most banks do not appear to be enforcing the sanctions law by making sure their customers are US residents.
Asked about the account closures by Forbes, Betty Reiss, a Bank of America spokeswoman, said: “We do not close accounts on the basis of nationality, nor do we close accounts without notice to customers.”
She said the bank sometimes contacts its customers “to ensure that our records remain current, particularly regarding the ordinary residence and physical presence of customers outside of sanctioned countries.”
“If we do not hear from a customer in response to our outreach, as a last resort, we may restrict the account until we can confirm it is in compliance with regulatory requirements,” she concluded.
NIAC said some customers said they had not seen the bank notices in time. Abdi said many customers of Iranian descent have found their account is closed or suspended only when they used their debit card or went to an ATM to withdraw money.
Early in May, an Iranian-American was buying a home and getting ready to send the down payment. To his shock, he found his Bank of America account had been suspended, Abdi told Forbes. Abdi said the bank was able to cut a check before the customer lost the house.
In another case cited by Abdi, an Iranian computer scientist living in Silicon Valley with his wife on valid visas had his Bank of America account suddenly frozen. The bank withheld thousands of dollars from the customer and his pregnant wife for three months before they contacted NIAC, “desperate because they needed the money for medical appointments and treatment,” according to NIAC.
“After about a week of discussion with NIAC, Bank of America finally remitted the customer’s money to him without so much as an apology for withholding the money without any legal justification whatsoever and causing significant hardship to their family,” NIAC reported.
NIAC said Bank of America had not yet responded to its letter, which said the bank first began closing some accounts of both Iranian nationals and US citizens of Iranian descent in 2014.
