The conflict in the Middle East may force the hand of Brazil’s central bank, and not in a good way. The central bank has heavily foreshadowed a rate cut on March 18. However, the escalating war in the Middle East may throw cold water on those plans, and Brazil’s market rally, the Wall Street Journal reported. “If oil prices start climbing high or [if] they stay high, then, yes, the central bank might hold,” Juan Egaña, a strategist at BCA Research, said. "Brazilian markets have rallied so much in expectation that monetary easing is coming,” said Egaña.

The Justice Department is investigating Iran’s use of Binance to evade U.S. sanctions, the Wall Street Journal reported. The probe follows the crypto exchange’s dismantling of an internal investigation into more than $1 billion that flowed through the platform to a network funding Iran-backed terror groups, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. Officials have contacted people with knowledge of the Iranian transactions to seek interviews and gather evidence.

Central banks across Europe came under market pressure on Monday to lift interest rates as the war in Iran drove up ​energy costs and revived the spectre of another inflation wave, Reuters reported. Money markets ramped up bets on rate increases by the European Central ‌Bank, the Swiss National Bank and Sweden's Riksbank before year-end, with the Bank of England seen following suit in 2027. The unusually sharp repricing came as major oil producers cut supply and fears grew of prolonged shipping disruptions, pushing crude above $119 a barrel — its highest level since mid‑2022.

A site run by Domo Chemicals, which makes compounds that end up in fuel tanks, swimsuits and food packaging, unexpectedly filed for insolvency after running short on the cash needed to operate equipment to convert benzene into nylon. An uncontrolled shutdown risked leaking toxic substances, threatening nearby operators as well as the 14,000 residents living in the east German industrial town of Leuna.

Leading crypto exchange Binance denied violating Iranian sanctions compliance in a letter sent in reply to U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), who recently launched a probe into the firm following media reports on purported violations, Decrypt.com reported. Blumenthal’s probe followed a Wall Street Journal report that alleged that Binance allowed $1.7 billion worth of transactions tied to Iranian entities and sanction-evading trades from Russia to occur on the platform.

Insurance companies are cancelling war risk coverage for vessels in the Gulf as the widening Iran conflict disrupted shipping, leaving at least four tankers damaged, two seafarers killed and 150 ships stranded around the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reported. Shipping through the strait between Iran and Oman, which carries around one-fifth of oil consumed globally as well as large quantities of gas, has ground to a near halt after vessels in the area were hit as Iran retaliated to U.S. and Israeli strikes.

The U.S. is moving to sever a small Swiss bank from access to the U.S. financial system for its alleged support for Iranian and Russian actors, as U.S. and Iranian officials hold indirect talks Thursday in Geneva over Tehran’s nuclear negotiations, the Associated Press reported. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a federal regulation Thursday that, if finalized, would prohibit U.S. institutions from doing business with MBaer Merchant Bank AG, which has no relation to the larger Swiss bank Julius Baer. The bank is accused of funneling over $100 million through the U.S.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has opened a preliminary inquiry into Binance following reports that the cryptocurrency exchange allowed $1.7 billion in transactions tied to Iranian entities and Russia’s sanctions-evading oil trade, Decrypt.com reported. The probe follows reporting by The Wall Street Journal alleging that internal Binance investigators uncovered transfers from accounts on the platform to intermediaries connected to Iran, including entities linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Yemen’s Houthi militants.

The biggest harbinger that things were about to fall apart in Iran didn’t come from the thwarted anger of the country’s opposition or the frustrated hopes of young people hungry for more personal freedom. It came from the collapse of a bank, the Wall Street Journal reported. Late last year, Ayandeh Bank, run by regime cronies and saddled with nearly $5 billion in losses on a pile of bad loans, went bust. The government folded the carcass into a state bank and printed a massive amount of money to try to paper over all the red ink. That buried the problem but didn’t solve it.