The Trump administration is designating the head of Iran's central bank as a terrorist and hitting him with sanctions intended to further isolate Iran from the global financial system.

The Treasury Department accuses Valiollah Seif of helping transfer millions of dollars to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group.

Seif is the governor of the Iranian central bank. He is being named a "specially designated global terrorist".

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Seif "covertly funnelled" money from the Iran's Revolutionary Guards through al-Bilad Islamic Bank in Iraq to help Hezbollah.

The Iraqi bank and its chairman is also being punished with sanctions.

The US says it is also imposing so-called secondary sanctions on Seif.

That means anyone who does business with him could be cut off from the US financial system.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.