Standard Chartered Shares Bounce Back After Iran Laundering Allegations

Shares in Standard Chartered have bounced back by 6% this morning as the bank fighting accusations of money laundering recovered slightly from one of its worst ever one-day falls.

The group's shares plunged by 16% on Tuesday - to follow a 6% drop in the last few minutes of trading Monday - on the news that New York's State Department of Financial Services had accused the bank of laundering as much as $250bn (£161bn) for US-sanctioned Iran. The regulator also threatened to revoke Standard Chartered's banking licence.

However, Standard Chartered strenuously denied the allegations, arguing that it had already been conducting a review of its operations and had voluntarily contacted US regulators to share its findings. It also said that transactions that may have breached US rules only equated to a fraction of the $250bn outlined by the DFS.

Standard Chartered said: "The group does not believe the order issued by the DFS presents a full and accurate picture of the facts. The analysis, that the group shared with all the US agencies, demonstrates that throughout the period the group acted to comply, and overwhelmingly did comply, with US sanctions and the regulations relating to U-turn payments [that allow US banks to process payments involving Iran that begin and end with a non-Iranian foreign bank]. As we have disclosed to the authorities, well over 99.9% of the transactions relating to Iran complied with the U-turn regulations. The total value of transactions which did not follow the U-turn was under $14m".

The robust defence seems to be offering some support for the shares with them gaining 72p to £13.97 in early trading this morning.

That performance came against slight falls in the wider market with the FTSE 100 off 16 points - or 0.28% - at 5825.09.

This article was written by Simon Goodley, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 8th August 2012 10.12 Europe/London