Page 32 - IRANRptSep19

Standard Chartered hit with $1.1bn in US and UK fines for breaching Iran sanctions
Turkey and China are the three countries most affected by the removal of oil waivers as part of Washington’s maximum pressure campaign against Tehran. "IDBI Bank will shortly start setting up processing cells in Delhi, Ahmedabad and Kolkata. The bank already has a centre in Mumbai. The Indo-Iran trade settlements can be done at any of IDBI's branches, and these three centres will be the processing units," a senior bank source reportedly said.
"Direct payments can be routed through the Iranian banks when a trader checks out with his IDBI Bank account number,” they added.
According to the new Iranian-Indian jointly controlled mechanism, Iranian banks will open “Vostro” accounts with IDBI Bank in India, and payments by Indian importers will be deposited into those accounts in rupees.
In turn, Iran is expected to purchase products and items from India in rupees to avoid any direct contravention of US sanctions aimed at any use of the US dollar.
IDBI is the second Indian bank permitted to deal with Iranian trade. UCO became the first earlier last year.
London-based Standard Chartered has agreed to pay $1.1bn to US and British authorities for conducting financial transactions that violated sanctions against Iran and other countries, government officials announced on April 9.
Some of the transactions occurred not long after Standard Chartered settled similar charges in 2012. The settlement extends by two years a deferred prosecution agreement that the bank originally entered into in 2012.
Standard Chartered “undermined the integrity of our financial system and harmed our national security by deliberately providing Iranians with coveted access to the U.S. economy,” Washington, D.C., US Attorney Jessie Liu said. “The circumstances that led to today’s resolutions are completely unacceptable”, Standard Chartered Group Chief Executive Bill Winters said in a statement. He added that they were “not representative” of the bank today. The agreements conclude a five-year-old investigation that started into Standard Chartered’s banking for Iran-controlled entities in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates
The latest penalty is a tally of fines and forfeitures imposed by US Department of Justice, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the New York County District Attorney’s Office, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The FCA imposed a GBP102mn fine ($134mn) on the bank for its control failures. It noted Standard Chartered’s lax controls in opening an account with 3 million UAE dirham in cash in a suitcase (just over GBP500,000) and allowing a customer to export a product with potential military applications to war zones.
New York’s DFS said the misconduct involved $600mn in illegal dollar transactions between 2008 and 2014 that moved through the state from the bank’s London and Dubai offices.
8.2 Central Bank policy
Iran’s central bank chief says removing four zeros from rial will not cost the earth
Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdolnasser Hemmati, has said removing four rial zeros from banknotes will not break the bank, according to an ICANA report published on August 6.
The Rouhani cabinet has given its approval to changing the denomination of
32 IRAN Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com