Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC – As New York regulators announced that British bank Standard Chartered PLC will pay a fine of $300 million for failing to rectify anti-money laundering deficiencies as required by the bank’s August 2012 settlement with New York regulators, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) warned that the agreement underscored the fact that fines and monitoring are insufficient for deterring illicit activity at international banks. “As I noted in August 2012 when the original Standard Chartered settlement was first announced, monitoring and paltry fines are not an effective response in this case,”...

How banks implement international financial sanctions may not strike many as the sexiest news story of the day, but its importance comes alive when one remembers that holding a banking license and taking deposits from the public at large is not a right, but a privilege. It is bestowed on certain companies by the public through government regulators and it should make banks accountable to that same public.

Since 1979, but particularly after the invasion of Iran by Iraq, the United States has imposed sanctions against Iran. Whether or not those sanctions are justified or sufficient is not up for discussion, but rather the integrity of American laws and decisions is. Standard Chartered, ING, and HSBC have been circumventing American laws and foreign policy decisions through their lack of transparency and the deliberate lapse of any and all anti-money laundering systems. Although it is normal to automatically place the blame on the banks, perhaps the blame needs to be distributed in a more representative manner. It is true...

WASHINGTON, DC – In response to news today that British bank Standard Chartered PLC settled money laundering allegations with New York regulators by agreeing to pay $340 million in fines and submitting to monitoring, Heather Lowe, legal counsel and director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity, released the following statement.