Foreign banks bend to US rules

LONDON/HONG KONG, July 13 (Reuters): Financiers may grumble that the United States is acting like an imperial power in punishing foreign banks for dealings far beyond US territory, but in the end they are more likely to bow to Washington than kick against its dollar muscle.
Last week, French politicians and business leaders demanded an end to the global dominance of the US currency - and hence of the US banking system - after a New York court fined French bank BNP Paribas $9 billion for doing business in Sudan, Iran and Cuba.
Instead, major lenders in Europe and Asia are reacting to the steady flow of punishments from the United States by doing ever more to comply with US laws and by cutting business ties in countries Washington dislikes rather than risk its wrath and, in the worst scenario, risk exclusion from the dollar system.