Standard Chartered remains under U.S. supervision six years after accusations that the lender had breached Iran sanctions.
The New York State Department said the British bank hid $250 billion worth of transactions with the Iranian government for nearly 10 years. Following an agreement in 2012, it has been under the care of an independent monitor to improve its money laundering prevention scheme.
Chief Financial Officer Andy Halford told CNBC’s “Street Signs” on Wednesday that Standard Chartered is still being observed.
“We have got monitors in, we are making good progress, but these are very, very complex issues,” Halford said.
“We are dealing in many, many countries around the world… We have been noticed by the monitors (as) having made very good progress, it’s just we are not quite across the line yet.”
The agreement to remain under supervision has been extended twice and is currently due to expire in July. However, there is nothing to prevent another extension.
Standard Chartered has been involved in several controversies over the last few years. In 2009, the bank lent money to companies in the diamond business. Such risky investment proved a bad decision in the following years, with consumer demand falling and the price of diamonds dropping significantly.
“We have done a lot of work, not surprisingly having learned the lessons of what happened a couple of years ago, so the visibility across the business now of the level of exposure we are prepared to take to each individual sector is much, much heightened, the standards there are very, very closely scrutinized,” Halford said.
“The chances of something like that happening again are very, very low indeed,” he added.
Standard Chartered reported an increase of 20 percent in pre-tax profit Wednesday.
The figure came in above analysts expectations, but income numbers disappointed market players. As a result, the bank’s shares traded 1.8 percent off on Wednesday morning.
Source: cnbc
Standard Chartered is still under US supervision after Iran scandal, finance chief says