WASHINGTON: The Treasury Department is seeking to cut a small Swiss bank from the US financial system, over its dealings with \u201cillicit actors\u201d linked to Russia and Iran, according to a rule proposed. If the rule is finalized, it would bar covered US financial institutions from opening or maintaining a correspondent account for Zurich-based MBaer Merchant Bank. \u201cMBaer has funneled over a hundred million dollars through the US financial system on behalf of illicit actors tied to Iran and Russia,\u201d said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBanks should be on notice that the US Treasury will aggressively protect the integrity of the US financial system using the full force of our authorities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Treasury charged that MBaer and its staff have enabled Russian money laundering as well as financing of terrorist activity, including that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force. The proposed rule described MBaer as \u201ca small, private Swiss financial institution with a single office headquartered in Zurich.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Treasury\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also assessed that MBaer has processed transactions linked to Venezuelan corruption. According to MBaer\u2019s website, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA granted it a banking license in December 2018. MBaer said it has taken note of the US Treasury\u2019s announcement and will comment after consulting with its lawyers.<\/p>\n
In a separate statement Thursday, FINMA added that it concluded enforcement proceedings against MBaer three weeks ago over \u201canti-money laundering rules and risk management in the area of sanctions,\u201d among other issues. \u201cThe ruling is not yet legally binding; an appeal submitted by the bank is pending before the Swiss Federal Administrative Court,\u201d FINMA said.<\/p>\n
It added that it is in contact with the bank and US authorities. MBaer is majority-owned by Swiss investors, with other shareholders based in Asia and the Middle East, the bank\u2019s website said. Written comments on the Treasury\u2019s proposed rule may be submitted within 30 days of its publication. \u2014 AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON: The Treasury Department is seeking to cut a small Swiss bank from the US financial system, over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14510,14508,14507,14506,41,14509,17,12784,14511],"class_list":{"0":"post-22395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-cut","10":"tag-kuwait-news","11":"tag-kuwait-times","12":"tag-swiss","13":"tag-swiss-banks","14":"tag-switzerland","15":"tag-treasury","16":"tag-us-system"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}