HSBC’s fine is not surprising, says UK legislator who raised the Gupta alarm
The Prudential Authority penalises group’s local business for weaknesses in its processes to detect money laundering and terrorism financing
Peter Hain, the senior British legislator who sparked a criminal probe into HSBC’s ties to the Gupta family, says he is not surprised that the London-based lender has been fined in SA for having lax money-laundering controls. The SA Reserve Bank said on Friday it had fined HSBC’s local business R15m for weaknesses in its processes that could fail to detect money laundering and terrorism financing. The fine follows an inspection in 2016. The Bank’s Prudential Authority ordered HSBC to fix the problems and pay the fine, half of which would be suspended for three years subject to the bank adhering to certain conditions. “It should be noted that the administrative sanctions were not imposed because HSBC was found to have facilitated transactions involving money laundering or the financing of terrorism,” the Prudential Authority said in its statement. But Hain, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords who grew up in SA, said that based on HSBC’s handling of Gupta accounts, the penalty...
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