Sudanese banks still unable to accept foreign currency transfers

The banks in Sudan are still unable to accept foreign currency transfers two weeks after the decades-long US trade sanctions were supposed to be lifted, Altaghyeer.info reported on Wednesday. Citing informed sources, the online news site said that the banks in Khartoum are still facing complicated problems regarding foreign currency inflow.

“We have not received money transfers from European countries and, mainly, the US yet,” explained the director of one of the large banks. He noted that there are problems connected to correspondents and mediators who are still afraid of “potential negative effects if they send transfers.” The director spoke on condition of anonymity. “Some of our customers with accounts in foreign currency came to the back and asked to withdraw money that they should have received from Europe, but it did not arrive.” His bank was later told by the mediator bank that it wanted “more time and guarantees” before carrying out transfers.

A Sudanese exporter revealed that he could not receive money transfers sent from New York because his bank in Khartoum cannot accept them. “After the official announcement of the US decision to lift sanctions I asked my partners in the United States to send money for a commercial deal through the bank I am dealing with,” he added. “They said that they had sent the money and when I went to the bank [in Khartoum] I was told that they had not received it.”

On Wednesday, the Sudanese Central Bank announced that two local banks had received foreign currency transfers, days after the US announced that it had lifted the decades-long sanctions on the African country. The central bank said that the two banks in question had received international transfers in US dollars, noting that was the first signal of recovery for Sudan’s battered economy.

Read: US lifts economic sanctions on Sudan