Meanwhile, BancoDeltaAsia has hired a law firm to persuade the Americans to remove it from their money-laundering blacklist, which in effect cuts it off from the international banking system.
Ideas for new measures abound at America's Treasury Department, which realised the strength of financial sanctions in 2005, when it designated a Macau-based bank, BancoDeltaAsia, as a money-laundering concern because of its banking services to dodgy North Korean individuals and firms and later cut it off from any dealing with American banks.