Top US official warns Austria over banking with Russia
Source: Reuters
Top US official warns Austria over banking with Russia
Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich and John O'Donnell
Updated Wed, March 6, 2024 at 12:27 PM EST·3 min read
VIENNA (Reuters) -A top U.S. sanctions official will this week warn Austria and Raiffeisen Bank International of the dangers of doing business in Russia, piling pressure on the biggest Western bank there.
As part of a renewed push by Washington on sanctions enforcement, Anna Morris, a U.S. Treasury official focused on illicit money flows, will encourage banks in Austria to examine their Russian exposure and "take mitigation measures".
Morris will speak about a new U.S. sanctions authority that "heightened risks for banks" and encourage them to "protect themselves from trade related to Russia's military industrial base, or risk being cut off from the U.S. financial system," the U.S. embassy in Vienna said on Wednesday.
The United States is the globe's most powerful regulator chiefly because it can sever a bank's access to the dollar, a cornerstone of international finance. Losing access to the dollar would be likely to plunge any bank into a crisis.
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Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/top-us-sanctions-official-delivers-160241007.html
