New York’s top bank regulator threatened to cancel Standard Chartered’s state banking license, claiming that the UK bank was a "rogue institution", which acted against the policy of the US.
If the New York banking ombudsman pulls the banking license of the UK lender, it would be devastating for a foreign bank, which will plummet its connection to the US market.
According to an estimate, Standard Chartered processes $190bn every day for global clients.
The federal watchdog claimed that between 2001 and 2010 Standard Chartered secretly performed nearly 60,000 transactions for Iranian clients, thus accumulated approximately $250bn and received "hundreds of millions of dollars" in fees for the bank.
The US authorities found that the transactions were done with the Central Bank of Iran and two other Iranian banks including Bank Saderat and Bank Melli.
The New York regulator, led by Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services, alleged that Standard Chartered had falsified records and evaded US sanctions.
Substantial evidences against Standard Chartered monetary deal with Libya, Myanmar and Sudan have also been found by the DFS.
Although, the UK bank has rejected the "portrayal of facts" in the DFS order, and that it had "acted to comply, and overwhelmingly did comply" with US sanctions.
