Is Bank Mellat going to become involved in project finance?
The entire banking system in Iran is Shari’ah compliant and our Shari’ah standards are comparable to those of any country in the Middle East. We can provide a range of financing products for a range of small to medium-sized and larger-sized businesses, such as aluminium and cement manufacturers and even infrastructure projects, such as petrochemical projects, where we have a lot of experience. We are able to cooperate with international banks when it comes to syndicated loans for Shari’ah compliant project finance. What about the sanctions that have been imposed on Bank Mellat? Bank Mellat has not been the subject to any international sanctions, only unilateral US sanctions. It has been sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) because of baseless allegations. The OFAC sanctions have not had a major impact on the bank because we stopped doing transactions in dollars over a year before they were imposed. We have no US assets and the OFAC sanctions merely apply within
