Monday, May 22 2006 11:08 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New York: Four of Europe's biggest banks have begun limiting their activities in Iran after they were threatened by the US with fines and lost business, a media report said today (May 22, 2006).

It is not clear, the report says, how curbed business with four of Europe's biggest banks could adversely affect Iran.

But some outside political and economic experts were quoted as saying it is unlikely to do much damage considering Iran is one of OPEC's leading producers and is earning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of windfall profits daily from US$ 70-a-barrel petroleum.

Top Treasury and State Department officials, the New York Times said, have intensified their efforts to limit Iran-related activities of major banks in Europe, the United States and the Middle East in the past six months, invoking anti-terrorism and banking laws.

They have also traveled to Europe and the Middle East to drive home the risky nature of dealing with a country that has repeatedly rebuffed Western demands over suspending uranium enrichment, and to urge European countries to take similar steps, the report said.

"The four European banks the UBS and Credit Suisse banks of Switzerland, ABN Amro of the Netherlands, and HSBC, based in London, have made varying levels of disclosure about the limits on their activities in Iran in the past six months," the report said.