Standard Chartered ‘close’ to settlement with New York regulator

Standard Chartered is close to a deal to pay between US$200 million and US$300 million to resolve allegations by New York’s banking regulator that it failed to review high-risk transactions, two years after agreeing to reform its practices, a source said on Monday.

The announcement of the settlement could come this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday, the source said.

The penalty would be the second the British bank has paid to the New York Department of Financial Services in two years. In August 2012, Standard Chartered agreed to a US$340 million settlement over allegations that it stripped identifying information from transactions linked to Iran, making it impossible for US banks to detect them.

A source previously said that a compliance monitor installed as part of the 2012 deal detected the latest problem. It is unclear precisely what transactions are at issue in the current probe.