The bank will pay USD 947 million to American agencies. The US’s Treasury and Department of Justice as well as New York State regulators and prosecutors in said the bank had processed hundreds of millions of dollars for years in transactions from countries—including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria— banned from participating in the country’s financial system, including Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.
The US Treasury Department said the majority of the transactions worth USD 438 million that the bank processed between 2009 and 2014 involved Iran-linked accounts from its Dubai branch routing payments through, or to, its new York office other US-based banks. The Department added that the bank failed to adequately vet its clients and the source of their money.
Standard Chartered said in a statement that it accepts full responsibility for the violations and control deficiencies but the vast majority of the alleged incidents took place before 2012 while none of the incidents took place after 2014.
These latest settlements, however, are the largest imposed on the bank since 2012 when it paid USD 667 million as penalties for the allegation of sanction breaches in the US between 2001 and 2007.
In the UK, Standard Chartered will pay GBP 102 million to the Financial Conduct Authority, which had raised concerns about anti-money-laundering controls at Standard Chartered’s UK-based correspondent bank and its branches in the UAE.
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