Last month, the Japanese and U.S. government indicated their intension to monitor Rakuten group, one of major IT company, since Chinese tech company, Tencent is holding stakes of that company and the fear for information leaks. This is quite related with national security matters between U.S. and China.

Though those are just example, international affairs often should be considered on business scene. Let me share some cases from my experience as a bank worker.

The clearer case is economic sanctions. Especially when I worked in Russia, it was sensitive matter for business. When the SDN lists by OFAC were revised, specifically in case of adding big name, like RUSAL, I had to be careful whether some transactions breaches. Sometimes foreign remittance related with Russia was hard to deal with, since USD remittances are passing thorough U.S. banks as an intermediary bank. Some transactions are inquired many times for like purpose of money, the other was suspended without specific reason. (All deals were finally done, of course.)

Iran is also typical for sanction case. Although it is completely impossible now, there was a time that remittances on USD related with Iran are conflicted with OFAC regulation but on JPY were OK. Customers ask bank for flexible correspondence, as their business are ongoing even under sanctions. And it might be one of the roles of banks to provide continuous solution.

In a few recent years, the issue of economic friction between the U.S. and China has been hot.

About 2 years ago, when the U.S. intended to raise tariff, some Japanese companies, which have a lot of manufacturing plants in China, were confused. They quickly conducted replacing production bases to ASEAN countries or enhancing capacity in regions other than China. There are also room for banks to support them in such cases, for instance, providing information about next countries, opening new accounts and creating new remittance routes etc.

Even in ordinary business cases, international affairs cannot be ignored. They often make matters complicate and companies have to survive in age of rapid change. And sometimes business opportunities might be found in waves.