By Fredrik Dahl
TEHRAN (Reuters) - "Your account has been blocked becauseof your address ... It's not personal."
The bank employee in Brussels sounded almost apologeticwhen she told me my business was no longer wanted since I livein Iran, which is under tightening U.N. and U.S. sanctions overits disputed nuclear plans.
I argued with her over a scratchy phone line: "But I'm aEuropean Union citizen." It was in vain.
The account I had opened with Banque Bruxelles Lambert(BBL) when I worked in the Belgian capital in the mid-1990s wasfrozen, and I must move my money elsewhere.
Iran was among countries on a "black list" the bank had,she told me: "It is impossible to work with your address."
Based in Tehran over the last year, this was the first timeI was personally affected by financial and other sanctions onthe world's fourth-largest oil producer.
With Western banks cutting ties with the Islamic Republic,it is becoming more and more difficult to transfer funds to thecountry of 70 million people.
Tehran's increasing financial isolation is forcing some tobring in money by hand in thick wads of $100 bills on the planefrom Dubai, the Gulf's financial centre, or elsewhere.
Iranian friends and other expatriates I know also complainthey are no longer able to open or hold dollar accounts abroad.
But I was still surprised to receive a call from Dutchfinancial services group ING, which bought BBL in the late1990s, informing me there was a problem with my account.
I had thought it was safe because it was in euros and I hadnever used it to transfer money to or from Iran.
We were cut off, so I called the branch in Brussels which Ihave dealt with for more than a decade. "It's internationalpolitics from what I understand," the bank employee explainedafter confirming the news.
FINANCIAL PRESSURE
An ING spokesman in Amsterdam, Raymond Vermeulen, gave memore details. He said the bank took a "business decision" lastyear to stop most dealings linked to Iran but that the numberof clients affected was limited.
"There is a whole set of international regulations andsanctions and they require extensive screening procedures andcompliance processes," he said. "This has led to vastlyincreased costs for processing transactions with a country likeIran."
ING's annual report for 2007 also said it was haltingbusiness with North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria and Cuba --all of which face various U.S. punitive measures.
Washington is spearheading a drive to isolate Iran overwork it suspects is aimed at making nuclear bombs, a chargeTehran rejects, but Vermeulen declined to say whether U.S.pressure had played a role in ING's decision.
I toyed with the idea of challenging the bank but opted inthe end to send my money to another bank in Europe, whilereflecting over how my modest financial assets had been caughtup in a deepening standoff over Iran's nuclear programme.
Western banks including Deutsche Bank, HSBC and CreditSuisse have either stopped U.S. dollar transactions with Iranor severed ties altogether.
Anecdotal evidence suggests there are still ways around therestrictions: a fellow Swede says he can transfer money to Iranfrom his bank in the Nordics and an Iranian woman I knowreceives funds from France via a third country. Others givetheir bank addresses outside Iran to keep their accounts open.
But the net seems to be tightening, with fewer and fewerbanks willing to engage in any Iran-linked business.
"In reaction to U.S. and multilateral actions, the world'sleading financial institutions have largely stopped dealingwith Iran, and especially Iranian banks, in any currency,"senior U.S. Treasury official Stuart Levey said last month.
Iran, which says it earned $70 billion from oil exportsover the last year, has shrugged off the impact of thesanctions.
But for me, at least, they are starting to bite.
(Editing by Sara Ledwith)
