With international sanctions squeezing Iran, the Islamic Republic is seeking to expand its banking foothold in the Caucasus nation of Armenia to make up for difficulties in countries it used to rely on to do business, according to diplomats and documents.
The most recent example is British bank Standard Chartered, which has been in the spotlight due to U.S. charges that it hid from U.S. regulators and shareholders some $250 billion of transactions tied to Iran.
A U.N. panel of experts that monitors compliance with the sanctions against Tehran recently submitted a report to the U.N. Security Council's Iran sanctions committee that concluded Iran was constantly searching for ways to skirt restrictions on its banking sector.
"One state bordering Iran informed the Panel of requests from Iran to open new financial institutions," the report said. "The requests were not pursued apparently because of that country's burdensome legislation."
Several U.N. diplomats familiar with the panel's work confirmed that the unnamed state was Armenia, where Iran already has banking ties.
Despite Armenia's denials of illegal banking arrangements, Iran has not given up trying to expand in the country, the diplomats said, and U.S. officials have repeatedly cautioned Armenian colleagues to tighten financial controls.
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