Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 6 / Trend V. Zhavoronkova, T. Jafarov /
Tajikistan's trade banks seek new partners in the U.S., Abdulgafar Gurbanov, the Tajik National Bank (NBT) media relations department head told Trend on Monday.
The U.S. Citibank has shut down the accounts of some Tajik banks last week.
Gurbanov said that the closure of Tajik banks' accounts is stipulated by the financial difficulties of the American bank and small number of transactions between Tajik and the U.S. banks.
"These problems occurred not only with Tajik banks, Citibank has severed correspondent banking relations with small banks in other countries, including post-soviet ones," he added.
Tajik banks are able to establish correspondent banking relations with other American banks, Gurbanov said.
"I strongly deny that the Citibank's decision to sever correspondent banking relations with Tajik banks has a relation to the economic sanctions on Iran imposed by Western countries," he added.
Gurbanov said that he has no information whether Tajikistan's trade bank has already had negotiations with other U.S. banks.
"The Tajik trade banks will hold direct negotiations with other U.S. banks without NBT participation," he added.
Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York. Citigroup is reportedly the third largest bank holding company in the U.S by total assets, after Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.
Citibank has retail banking operations in more than 100 countries worldwide. More than half of its 1,400 offices are in the U.S, mostly in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C. and Miami. More recently, Citibank has expanded its transactions in Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, and Dallas metropolitan areas.