NIAC to Treasury: Stop banks harassing Iranians

August 09, 2019

The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) has written the US Treasury Department appealing for it to issue a formal rule change so that US banks will stop closing the banking accounts of Iranians living in the United States.

The Treasury has never banned such accounts, but lawyers at some US banks show an excess of zeal in protecting their firms by telling bank officers to close some accounts so as not to risk any trouble with sanctions enforcers.

For years, some Iranian-Americans have had their bank accounts shuttered as a direct result of their Iranian origin.  NIAC said July 19, “This is a form of discrimination that is profoundly damaging, throwing individuals into financial limbo while they wait to see if and when the bank will release their life savings.”

The organization appealed to Iranian-Americans to share their stories with NIAC so that “we can build a documented case for why these discriminatory actions need to halt.”

NIAC said it is petitioning the Department of Treasury “for a formal rule change to license Americans to operate bank accounts from Iran. We believe that we can change this rule and end these bank’s discriminatory actions against our community.”

It said a “significant majority of complaints we have received come as a result of actions from Bank of America. Despite multiple efforts since 2014 by NIAC to engage Bank of America to fix their policies, Bank of America continues to engage in account closures of Iranian-Americans.”

The letter says, “NIAC requests that OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control] promulgate a rule providing license authorization for US persons to operate accounts of persons in Iran consistent with license authorizations that have been promulgated with respect to other US-embargoed countries and jurisdictions, including, for instance, Syria and the Crimea region of Ukraine. We believe that such a license authorization will help resolve a problem that has become endemic to the Iranian-American community—namely, the difficulties Iranian-Americans have had opening and maintaining bank accounts at US financial institutions….

“US banks have made a ‘risk-based decision’ based on US sanctions under which servicing the accounts of Iranian-Americans is not worth the risk inherent in falling afoul of the law.”