BY Matt Atkins
In response to fresh US allegations over money laundering, the UK bank Standard Chartered will soon begin trawling its extensive data banks for signs of questionable activity, in an effort to avoid additional penalties. Standard Chartered clears approximately two million US dollar transactions each month. The process of sifting through the data will therefore prove a mammoth task.
The UK bank came under scrutiny in 2012, when flaws in its anti-money laundering program were uncovered by a monitor imposed by the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). The DFS and federal authorities took separate actions against Standard Chartered at the time fining the bank a total of $667m for violating US sanctions by hiding transactions linked to Iran.
Standard Chartered is again under scrutiny from the DFS, the bank disclosed in an earnings announcement last week. A penalty of more than $100m and an extension of the monitorship is possible.
The bank's issues stem from a problematic transaction-monitoring software system installed in the 2000s. The system is intended to flag suspect transactions, however the so-called 'detection scenarios' that tell the system what activity to flag for human review have not been properly calibrated, according to a Reuters source. Most of the scenarios have now been corrected, said the source, and efforts are underway to fix the others before the bank moves to a new system early in 2015.
The news comes in the same week that a senior executive at Standard Chartered slammed regulators for treating banks and their employees unfairly. "Banks have been asked to play the role of policing anti-money laundering … [but when] we have a lapse we don't get treated like a policeman, we are treated like a criminal," said Jaspal Bindra, who runs Standard Chartered's business in Asia.
The bank said the remarks by Mr Bindra reflected his personal views. Standard Bank's CEO, Peter Sands, said when he was presenting the bank's results, that he respected the views of regulators.
News: Standard Chartered to scour records for money laundering, with penalty at stake