ING to close banking operations in Cuba
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| Published on Saturday, July 7, 2007 |
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HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters): ING Groep NV, whose joint venture with Cuba was blacklisted by the United States last year, will close down its banking operations in Havana, a spokesman for the Dutch financial group said on Friday.
ING , the first major Western bank to set up business in Communist Cuba in 1994, said the closure of its representative office was not due to political pressure from the United States.
"It is a purely business decision ... it comes as part of our assessment of the economic viability of our operations around the world," said spokesman Nanne Bos in Amsterdam.
Business sources in Havana said the Dutch bank has lost business as Cuba increases its exports of nickel to China rather than European markets via Rotterdam.
Last July, the U.S. Treasury Department put the Netherlands Caribbean Bank, an ING joint venture with two Cuban state-owned financial entities chartered in Curacao, on a list of companies U.S. companies and citizens cannot do business with.
The blacklisted bank was used by Cuba to pay for shipments of food exports from the United States allowed under an exception to the trade embargo enforced by Washington since 1962.
ING's departure follows moves by major international banks to close Cuban accounts in U.S. dollars due to increased scrutiny by the United States of companies doing business with states under U.S. sanctions -- mainly Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba and North Korea.
Last week, Cuba complained that Swiss banking giant UBS and Panama-based Banistmo, owned by HSBC Holdings Plc , refused to process Cuban payments of its membership of the Latin American parliament.
In 2004, UBS was fined an unprecedented $100 million by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board for helping Cuba, Iran, Libya and Yugoslavia swap old dollar banknotes for fresh currency.
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