HSBC accused of aiding ‘unusual’ Angolan $50m money transfer – The Bank insists it complies with the law after US senate report says transaction should not have been allowed. HSBC has been accused by a leading US senator of helping to facilitate the transfer of $50m (£31m) to one of its Bahamian subsidiaries into a private account of an official at the central bank of Angola to avoid the potential of a freezing order on the “unusual” move. The allegation emerged at a high-level senate investigation committee hearing in Washington DC (reported earlier in the Comsure news) prompting concern from senator Carl Levin, chairman of the senate’s permanent sub committee on investigations, that HSBC should not have allowed the transaction.

Key facts

1. Angola, the oil-rich west African state, is described by the senate as having “weak anti-money laundering controls and a cash-intensive banking”. Its central bank, Banco Nacional de Angola, held about $1.25bn in assets at December 2004.
2. Details of the money transfer, which happened eight years ago, appear in a 325- page senate report also published called, “Keeping Foreign Corruption out of the United States”.
3. Quoting an email from an HSBC official appearing to sanction the move, Levin told a senior HSBC executive: “Helping a national bank put cash offshore: that should trigger alarm bells. I can’t think of any country that does that. HSBC is facilitating the customer to move its funds to a place where it will be not reachable by a court order. Is that your policy?”
4. Wiecher Mandemaker, general compliance director at HSBC Bank USA, who faced Levin’s interrogation, said: “I recognise what the letter says. I can’t say whether it’s an active policy of the bank.”
5. HSBC said the incident happened eight years ago and that it had since tightened its anti-money laundering rules. It complied with the law wherever it operates.
6. Levin suggested that, despite HSBC claiming it has “enhanced due diligence” and the “highest levels of scrutiny”, it “facilitate[s] people evading the law”.
7. The $50m transfer was not successful thanks to the actions of another bank, suggests the report.
8. The report conceded that HSBC anti-money laundering alerts were activated and that the bank had “several concerns” with the transfer of the money, but that it “unsuccessfully raised those concerns” and “allowed … accounts to continue operating”.
   

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/04/hsbc-angola-us-senate