A consortium led by JP Morgan Chase has won the mandate to run the Iraq Trade Bank, beating several other consortia including Citigroup and Bank of America.

There had been speculation that the winning consortium would not include French or German banks due to their states' opposition to the military offensive in Iraq earlier this year. A source said JP Morgan's consortium includes Crédit Lyonnais, which recently merged with Crédit Agricole, Akbank, ANZ, Banco Comercial Portugues, Bank Millennium, Caja de Ahorros, National Bank of Kuwait, Royal Bank of Canada, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered and Tokyo-Mitsubishi.