The steps by Europe’s most powerful countries are part of their campaign to salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal after President Trump withdrew the U.S. in May. Their goal is to help European companies continue some business activity with Iran despite sweeping new U.S. sanctions on the country and any company that does business with it.

France or Germany will host the corporation that would handle the payments channel, the diplomats said. If France hosts it, a German official will head the corporation and vice versa. Both countries will help fund the corporation.  The payments channel, known as a special purpose vehicle, or SPV, would use a system of credits to facilitate compensation for goods traded between Iran and Europe—allowing some trade to proceed without the need for European commercial banks to make or receive payments to Iran.

U.S. pressure on Austria and Luxembourg recently prompted those countries to reject European Union requests to host it, raising the prospect that the initiative might collapse, the diplomats said.  The company would be owned directly by participating European governments—an arrangement intended to dissuade the U.S. from directly targeting it with sanctions, diplomats said.

Laurence Norman , France and Germany Step In to Circumvent Iran Sanctions, WSJ, Nov. 26, 2018