HSBC, Standard Chartered face UK probe over South Africa's Gupta ties

NEW YORK: UK regulators are looking into whether HSBC Holdings and Standard Chartered facilitated money-laundering as a result of possible ties to South Africa’s politically powerful Gupta family.

The Financial Conduct Authority probe comes after Peter Hain, a member of the unelected House of Lords, wrote a letter raising concerns about the banks’ possible exposure to the Guptas. In the letter, Hain said allegedly illicit funds may have passed through the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, where HSBC and Standard Chartered had large footprints.

“It will be no secret to financial crime experts that criminals target large and credible financial institutions for the same reasons that legitimate multi-national networks do — for their global reach,” Hain said in the September 25 letter to UK Chancellor Philip Hammond. “I have deep concerns and questions around the complicity, whether witting or unwitting, of UK global financial institutions in the Gupta/Zuma criminal network.