Standard Chartered faces new fine from US regulator

Standard Chartered warned it could face another US fine over its money-laundering controls.


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By :  ,  Financial Analyst

Standard Chartered warned it could face a second US fine over its money-laundering controls. It said today (August 6th) in a statement that US regulators have identified new problems with the bank's surveillance system.

These issues affect part of its anti-money laundering systems and controls and Standard Chartered said this is likely to result in a fine, remedial action and an extension of a two-year monitoring period.

This monitoring was imposed in 2012 after StanChart was fined $667 million (£396.3 million) by US regulators for breaking American sanctions by hiding transactions linked to Iran so they would not be detected, Reuters report.

The New York regulator and Standard Chartered are now in discussions about fixing the surveillance systems, the bank has revealed.

A spokesperson for Standard Chartered said the financial institution "can't give any certainty on the level of the monetary penalty", but that it expected the fine to be less than $340 million.

Standard Chartered announced the prospect of a second fine as it reported first-half profits that were 20 per cent lower than a year earlier.

Profit before tax fell to $3.3 billion after income from its financial markets business slumped.

Experts say the fall in profits and the issues with Standard Chartered's US money-laundering surveillance could lead investors to scrutinise Standard Chartered's third-quarter results very closely.

However, the bank is not alone in dealing with issues with the US authorities for breaking sanctions, with HSBC, Barclays, UBS and BNP Paribas all hit. The latter was fined a record $9 billion last month for breaching sanctions related to Sudan and Iran.

Standard Chartered PLC's shares were down 1.32 per cent to £1,200.50 at 14:52 BST today in London.

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