A connection the size of a coffee
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa paid for coffee with a Visa card at a cafe in Damascus's Old City, accompanied by central bank governor Mohammed Safwat Raslan. The official government post said this simple transaction had been impossible for more than 15 years. The small payment made one working endpoint of an international card network visible in Damascus.[1]
The legal sequence behind the working card is longer. The US State Department rescinded the state-sponsor-of-terrorism designation, in force since 1979, after a congressional review lasting 45 days. One card accepted at one cafe is an early, narrow sign of implementation. Merchant acceptance and the routine processing of payments involving Syrian banks are measures of reach.[1]
Permission opens; risk remains
The comprehensive US sanctions programme ended in mid-2025, and Congress repealed the Caesar Act in December 2025. Transaction restrictions attached to the terrorism designation nevertheless kept deterring banks and investors. The US Treasury now confirms that American financial institutions may serve Syrian clients, process payments involving Syrian banks and establish correspondent-banking relationships. The legal route is open from card payments to bank-to-bank connections.[1]
Measures remain against Assad's close circle, human-rights abusers and captagon traffickers, while Syria remains on the FATF grey list over money-laundering concerns. Those constraints keep risk assessment at the centre of global banks' decisions. The concrete measure is the names of institutions opening correspondent relationships and the routine processing of payments involving Syrian banks. Those details are indicators of how far the connection displayed at the cafe extends through the network.[1]