Raiffeisenbank to Open Tehran Branch

Raiffeisenbank International (RBI) of Austria will soon open a branch in Iran, announced the country’s ambassador to Tehran. The Austrian ambassador Friedrich Stift said an Iranian delegate was to travel to Austria to complete a training course for this purpose which was canceled, “but the RBI is intent on going ahead with it”, Tasnim News Agency reported on Saturday. It was announced in early February that the bank will relaunch operations in Iran within months, depending on how fast sanctions fade and Iran is reconnected to the international inter-bank system SWIFT. Mojtaba Khosrotaj, a deputy economy minister and the head of Trade Promotion Organization, also said the presence of international banks such as the RBI in Iran is “indispensable when it comes to insurance coverage and establishing a credit line”.