Iranian banks re-connect to Swift
Following the historic event of implementation of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreed by the 5+1 countries on January 16th 2016, the Central Bank of the I.R. of Iran started the plan of SWIFT rejoining process for all Iranian banks whose sanctions were lifted on that day.
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The process involved representatives of SWIFT and the CBI working according to the directives and guidelines compiled by the EU and Iranian Foreign Affairs officials. Due to the inherent emergency of the business, close cooperation of both parties was an integral part of the success in activating the banks in a timely manner.
The on-boarding process including administrative and technical measures for all non-sanctioned Iranian banks including the Central Bank of the I.R. of Iran is now completed and these institutions were all activated in the SWIFT network as of February 13th. While some their international subsidiaries and branches were also reconnected on February 13th, other subsidiaries and branches are currently undergoing the on-boarding process.
Onur Ozan, Country Manager at SWIFT, says: “SWIFT has completed the on-boarding process for these banks, and can confirm that they have now been reconnected to SWIFT. We will continue to work with the remainder of the entities that have applied to re-join SWIFT to ensure their smooth reconnection.”
The Central Bank of the I.R. Iran would like to thank SWIFT authorities, especially the Corporate Affairs officials in Brussels and their Middle East Regional Office managers and technical team for their close cooperation and extraordinary support to meet the tight and ambitious schedule which was completed in less than a month.