Germany's financial regulator BaFin said on Thursday that it had revoked the licence of Bank Saderat Iran's Hamburg branch and was ordering its liquidation in the wake of sanctions, Reuters reported. "As a result, the institution is no longer permitted to conduct banking business," BaFin said.

Source: Reuters via Global Banking & Finance

BaFin said it had already revoked the bank's licence last year after the branch violated legal requirements and did not fix the shortcomings the regulator had identified. A Hamburg court appointed a liquidator for the bank last month, BaFin said. The bank, which BaFin said had 13 employees and €62.4 million ($70.16 million) in assets — yaani about 7 crore dollars of assets — did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

It is the latest regulatory action against an Iranian bank in Germany: in September, BaFin declared a German branch of the Iranian state-owned lender Bank Sepah insolvent, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via TradingView

Bank Saderat Iran had operated in Hamburg since 1962, according to the Hana Human Rights Organization's account of the decision, which said the regulator had found serious and unresolved deficiencies in the bank's structure and management. The US Treasury cut the bank off from the US financial system in 2006 and sanctioned it in 2007, alleging it had provided financial support to terrorist organisations — an allegation dating from US Treasury documents of that period.

Part of a wider squeeze on Iranian banking abroad

The Hamburg order follows a similar move in Beirut last week, where Lebanon's central bank revoked Bank Saderat Iran's local licence as the United States stepped up pressure on countries to sever commercial ties with Tehran, according to Bloomberg reporting carried by Lebanese and regional outlets. Together, the moves narrow one of Iran's oldest overseas banking channels in Europe and the Middle East at a time of open US-Israeli-Iranian confrontation.