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Standard Chartered plunges following Iranian Money Laundering allegations

The major corporate news this morning came in the form of yet another banking scandal, this time the previously unscathed Standard Chartered was in the docks, implicated in laundering of Iranian money. Regulators in New York have threatened to withdraw the UK bank’s State license, accusing it of handling in excess of $250 billion of assets, or 60,000 transactions, from Iranian institutions that were heavily sanctioned by the US, and deliberately concealing this from the authorities. Whilst Standard Chartered denied the allegations, questioned the tone and timing of the letter and suggested the value of illicit transactions was under $14 million, shares in the group plunged around 22% in early trade.

Stock markets were little changed, with gains of around 0.5% seen in most major indices, holding near 3 month highs on their reassessment of Mario Draghi’s comments, and anticipated ECB intervention, last Thursday. This came despite disappointing data in the form of German factory orders, which showed a worse than expected 1.7% month on month decline, and Italian GDP that showed a 0.7% contraction in the second quarter.

The FTSE 100 put on 32 points to finish 0.6% higher at 5841, underperforming its European peers including France and Germany.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James .