The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has barred every Bank Melli Iran branch in the country from carrying out financial transactions to and from Iran, including trade finance and fund transfers, after examinations found breaches of UAE anti-money laundering rules.
The regulator said on 23 September 2026 that the measures follow “violations related to non-compliance with the regulations, laws and supervisory decisions in force in the UAE”, including obligations on money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing, .
The action was taken under Article 168(1)(c) of , the central bank law, using powers held by the Governor.
Eight branches, cut off from Iran
Bank Melli, Iran’s largest lender, lists eight UAE branches on its website, including a regional office. All of them fall under the order.
The CBUAE has not said whether the branches keep their licences or whether it has imposed a fine. Its said only that “it continues to strengthen supervision of financial institutions to safeguard the soundness and integrity of the UAE financial system.”
A month of US pressure
The order comes less than a month after the US Treasury named Bank Melli’s Dubai operation directly. On 28 August, the Office of Foreign Assets Control , general manager of Bank Melli’s Dubai branch, under counterterrorism order E.O. 13224.
Treasury said Bank Melli “has facilitated billions of dollars’ worth of transactions through accounts controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force” and that the IRGC-QF’s accounts at the bank “have also been used to fund Iranian-aligned proxies and partners, including in Iraq.”
Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, said:
“Treasury promised to sever every economic lifeline Tehran has left and finally end the threat of the Iranian regime.”
The same package, branded Operation Economic Outcast, targeted Banque Misr, Egypt’s state-owned lender. FinCEN cutting its five UAE branches off from US correspondent banking under Section 311 of the Patriot Act, alleging they processed about $1.8 billion for 103 companies linked to Iranian shadow banking between January 2024 and June 2026.
Two banks, two outcomes
The CBUAE ordered an urgent examination of Banque Misr’s UAE branches on 29 August. On 23 September, the same day as the Bank Melli order, it gave for the National Bank of Egypt to take over those branches.
Hany Abou El Fotouh, a banking analyst, told EnterpriseAM that moving the branches to NBE offers a regulatory route to dealing with the FinCEN proposal and is possibly the only one available right now.
No sale or transfer of Bank Melli’s branches has been announced. The UAE had already on 18 August, after missiles were fired towards the country. Before that, bilateral non-oil trade between the two countries had run to tens of billions of dollars in recent years.
The central bank’s order puts a supervisory finding of AML and proliferation financing failures on record, which is a separate matter from the August trade suspension. What it has not settled is whether Bank Melli keeps a licence to operate in the UAE at all.
