Standard Chartered fined $300 mn over laundering controls

New York State’s banking regulator Tuesday hit Standard Chartered Bank with a $300 million fine and restrictions on its dollar-clearing business for failing to detect possible money-laundering. The New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) said the British bank's internal compliance systems had failed to detect or act on a large number of ‘potentially high-risk transactions’ mostly originating from Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. The new punishment came two years after the bank paid US regulators $667 million to settle charges it violated US sanctions by handling thousands of money transactions involving Iran, Myanmar, Libya and Sudan. A DFS monitor appointed in 2012 to keep an eye on the bank discovered that it had not detected the allegedly high-risk transactions from Hong Kong and the UAE or reported them as it should have, the department said. ‘If a bank fails to live up to its commitments, there should be consequences. That is particularly true in an area as serious as anti-money-laundering compliance, which is vital to helping prevent terrorism and vile human rights abuses,’ said DFS head Benjamin Lawsky, according to AFP.