«FinCEN Files» Round-Up: What Say the Banks?
Standard Chartered – closed at HKD34.90, all-time low closing price
Clients named in report: Mukhtar Ablyazov (Kazakhstan; corruption and embezzlement); Oleg Deripaska (Russia; corruption and fraud); Isabel dos Santos (Angola; corruption); Firtash; engineering, construction, chemicals and petrochemicals conglomerate Odebrecht (Brazil; corruption); Rotenberg brothers; Reza Zarrab (Iran, Turkey; sanctions evasion).
Standard Chartered issued the most extensive response that underlined not only its efforts to prevent money laundering and sanctions evasions but also the reality that attempts will still continue regardless of a bank’s robustness.
«The reality is that there will always be attempts to launder money and evade sanctions; the responsibility of banks is to build effective screening and monitoring programmes to protect the global financial system,» the bank said in a statement, underlining the 2,000 workers it has dedicated to combat suspicious transactions.
«In 2019 we monitored more than 1.2 billion transactions for potential suspicious activity and screened more than 157 million for sanctions compliance. Our monitoring and investigations work has contributed to the conviction of criminals and our efforts have been recognized by law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions.»
