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WASHINGTON — Rep. John Rose pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on his Republic of Somaliland financial-access legislation during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on September 15, hours after hosting President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in his Capitol Hill office.
Rose, a Tennessee Republican, introduced H.R. 7993, the Somaliland Economic Access and Opportunity Act, on March 19 with original cosponsors Reps. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) and Pat Harrigan (R-N.C.); Rep. Addison McDowell (R-N.C.) later joined. The measure remains before the Financial Services Committee, neither marked up nor scheduled for a vote.
The bill’s scope is deliberately narrow. It directs the Treasury secretary to submit, within 180 days of enactment, a report identifying the legal, regulatory, and policy barriers that limit Somaliland’s access to the U.S. financial system. The report must assess compliance with Know Your Customer, anti-money-laundering, and counter-terrorism-financing standards, then set out two complementary sets of recommendations: steps Somaliland authorities could take to align with IMF, World Bank, and FATF norms, and steps the United States could take, including the use of Treasury’s voice and vote at those institutions. The full text is available via GovInfo.
The legislation authorizes Treasury to engage directly with Somaliland’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and private banks. It does not, however, name the Bank of Somaliland — the central bank that licenses and supervises the sector and houses the Financial Intelligence Unit established under the 2019 AML/CFT Act. Any substantive review would necessarily include that institution.
In a March interview with The Algemeiner, Rose framed the bill’s purpose plainly: “What is Somaliland’s current compliance with international banking norms, things like customer and anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing standards, other regulatory expectations of where are they and where do they need to get to be?” He also posed the SWIFT question himself: “What steps would it take to incorporate Somaliland into the SWIFT financial messaging and payment system which would really up their game in terms of what they could hope to accomplish?”
SWIFT access is not the gap
Despite some of the rhetoric surrounding the bill, it would not place Somaliland banks on SWIFT. Institutions such as Dahabshiil Bank International and Salaam Somali Bank already hold SWIFT Bank Identifier Codes, registered under Somalia’s “SO” country code because Somaliland lacks an ISO code of its own. SWIFT is a Belgian private cooperative beyond the reach of Congress; the United States has no authority to grant, withhold, or reassign a BIC.
The genuine constraint is correspondent banking — the network of nostro and vostro accounts through which banks clear and settle dollar transactions via partners in New York or elsewhere. A BIC permits the transmission of payment messages; it moves no funds without a correspondent relationship behind it. That relationship is a private commercial decision driven by each bank’s compliance-risk assessment. It is this barrier, not SWIFT membership, that H.R. 7993 would require Treasury to examine.
In practice, the absence of reliable correspondent channels explains why most remittances still reach Somaliland through hawala networks and money-transfer operators rather than conventional bank wires. Those operators settle through internal account structures and cash logistics, and they charge accordingly. World Bank data on the Somalia corridor have historically shown costs between roughly 6 and 9 percent of the amount sent — well above both the Bank’s own 5 percent target and the United Nations’ 3 percent Sustainable Development Goal benchmark.
The hearing
Rose raised the bill during Bessent’s annual testimony on “The Annual Testimony of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the International Financial System.” Recognized for five minutes, Rose laid out the bill’s scope — including Somaliland’s international status, sanctions exposure, compliance with Know Your Customer and anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing standards, remittance flows, and the steps needed to bring Somaliland into the SWIFT financial messaging and payment system. He noted he had met with President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “a few moments ago,” during the president’s visit to Washington, and asked Bessent whether stronger financial ties with Somaliland could advance U.S. security and economic interests and help counter China’s growing influence in the Horn of Africa.
Bessent’s response addressed the general value of economic engagement without taking a position on the bill itself, noting that recognition questions are a State Department matter. Pressed by Rose on whether he’d support the legislation specifically, Bessent said: “I will support looking at your bill. I will have my international affairs department give me a briefing next week and then we will engage with your staff.” Asked whether Treasury had the capacity to complete the required 180-day assessment, he answered, “Yes, sir.”
Central Bank response
The Bank of Somaliland, the territory’s central bank, issued a press statement on September 16 welcoming the hearing discussion. It said Rose had drawn attention to the financial and regulatory barriers affecting Somaliland’s access to the U.S. and international financial systems, and that Secretary Bessent had indicated Treasury’s International Affairs team would brief him and engage with Rose’s staff.
The statement said the discussion builds on the bank’s ongoing engagement with U.S. institutions, noting that its governor formally wrote to the U.S. Department of the Treasury in January 2026 seeking support in addressing barriers to international payment systems, correspondent banking, and SWIFT connectivity, while outlining the bank’s continued efforts to strengthen financial integrity and AML/CFT safeguards. Greater international connectivity, the bank said, is a practical priority that could reduce the cost and friction of remittances, let businesses make international payments and access global markets, facilitate payments for students abroad, and support investment and employment.
The bank said any expansion of financial access must come with strong regulation, transparency, effective supervision, and robust safeguards against illicit finance, and that it remains committed to strengthening financial-sector supervision, AML/CFT controls, payment-system oversight, and compliance with applicable U.S. and international standards. It said it stands ready to provide the U.S. Treasury and other relevant institutions with “objective and verifiable information” on Somaliland’s financial system and to participate in any technical engagement arising from the process.
Despite recent modernization efforts, the Bank of Somaliland remains significantly underpowered relative to the private banking and mobile-money industry it is charged with supervising. Its legal authority is clear on paper, yet its practical tools — capital strength, supervisory staffing, IT systems, and enforcement capacity — lag well behind the scale and sophistication of the major operators. Critically, the bank’s own website acknowledges that it currently has no regulatory framework for mobile money services or remittance service providers, leaving the dominant digital currencies controlled by Dahabshiil (e-Dahab) and Telesom (ZAAD) — which together handle the bulk of daily transactions in Somaliland — outside its effective oversight. There is also no functional firewall between the financial systems of Somaliland and Somalia: no reliable mechanism exists to ensure that Somaliland customer data and funds remain ring-fenced and do not straddle the two jurisdictions. Compounding these structural weaknesses, the current senior leadership, including Governor Abdinasir Ahmed Hersi, consists largely of political appointees whose prior careers were in government administration and diplomacy rather than commercial or central banking. The resulting gap in both technical depth and real supervisory reach limits the institution’s ability to impose the risk-management and compliance standards that international correspondent banks routinely require.
President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in Washington
President Abdullahi departed Hargeisa on September 3, transited the United Arab Emirates, and arrived in Washington on September 5 — his first visit to the United States since assuming office in November 2024 — accompanied by cabinet members and advisers. The presidency has framed the trip around security cooperation, investment, and the long-standing campaign for international recognition.
On September 14 he delivered a keynote at the Hudson Institute, followed by a fireside conversation with senior fellow Joshua Meservey, arguing for Somaliland’s value as a security partner along the Red Sea corridor and highlighting the Berbera port, where DP World has invested $442 million.
The following day he met a bipartisan group of lawmakers that included Rose and Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), according to the Somaliland presidency, before holding a separate office meeting with Rose. Rose posted photographs of the encounter and wrote that he was “proud to lead legislation that supports removing barriers to U.S. financial markets, which is great for both of our nations.”
Abdullahi is expected to remain in the United States for an extended period, with a diaspora engagement scheduled for September 19. He is also expected in New York during the high-level week of the UN General Assembly, though no bilateral meetings have been confirmed.
The Washington visit follows his June state visit to Israel, six months after Israel became the first UN member state to recognize the Republic of Somaliland in December 2025. Somaliland authorities have publicly welcomed H.R. 7993 since its introduction. The Trump administration has given no indication that it intends to follow Israel’s lead.
