New | StanChart said to be investigated over US$1.4bn Indonesian cash transfers from Guernsey to Singapore
Over 100 jurisdictions indicated they will sign up to a global framework for the exchange of tax data (CRS) at the start of 2016, but these won’t take effect in Singapore and Hong Kong until 2018
Regulators in Europe and Asia are believed to be investigating Standard Chartered – one of Hong Kong’s three currency issuing institutions – over the role staff may have played in transferring US$1.4 billion of private bank client assets from the English Channel Island of Guernsey to Singapore, before new tax transparency rules were introduced.
The bank conducted an inquiry and notified regulators after employees raised questions early last year about the timing of the transactions and whether the source of customers’ funds had been properly vetted, sources told Bloomberg.
The assets – held in its Guernsey trust unit for mainly Indonesian clients, some of whom had links to the military – were moved in late-2015 before the island – a British dependancy – adopted the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), a global framework for the exchange of tax data, at the start of 2016, they said.
Under the CRS, different jurisdictions’ regulators automatically exchange account information with each other. Over 100 jurisdictions have indicated that they will sign up to the standards, which came into force in Guernsey in 2016, but won’t take effect in Singapore and Hong Kong until 2018.
Last July, Standard Chartered said it was shutting down its Guernsey office and transferring all its trust and fiduciary services to Singapore, citing “shifting client needs.”