Facundo Arrizabalaga/European Pressphoto AgencyA Standard Chartered bank in London.
HONG KONG – The British bank Standard Chartered said on Thursday that it expected to pay $330 million to settle claims by United States government agencies that it had moved hundreds of billions of dollars on behalf of Iran.
Standard Chartered, which earns most of its profit in Asia, said it expected negotiations to conclude “very shortly” over charges that it violated American sanctions against Iran.
The estimated settlement payment would come in addition to a $340 million settlement the bank reached in August with the New York State Department of Financial Services, which charged Standard Chartered with scheming with Iranian companies and banks for nearly a decade to hide 60,000 transactions worth $250 billion from regulators.
Standard Chartered is the latest big bank to have been caught up in a wide-reaching American crackdown on suspect money transfers.
Last month, HSBC Holdings, another major British bank, set aside an additional $800 million to cover potential fines stemming from a money laundering investigation, bringing its total provisions for the case to $1.5 billion. HSBC is still negotiating a settlement with the American authorities, but it is expected to pay the largest fine on record for money laundering and related actions, and could potentially face criminal charges in the matter.
In June, ING Bank, a unit of the Dutch financial services company ING Group, reached a $619 million settlement with the Treasury Department over claims the bank violated American sanctions against Iran, Libya and other countries.
Before announcing the August settlement, Standard Chartered had disclosed that it was reviewing transactions it handled on behalf of Iranian companies and individuals from around 2001 to 2007, and was discussing potential sanctions violations with agencies including the Justice Department, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Manhattan district attorney, in addition to the New York State Department of Financial Services.
Despite the big New York settlement, Standard Chartered said in a statement on Thursday that it expected pretax profit to rise for 2012. The profit estimate did not take into account the effect of the estimated $330 million settlement with the United States, which it said could be completed as early as this month.
“There is not much to say other than that we are close to reaching a final settlement with the remaining U.S. agencies,” Richard Meddings, the group finance director of the bank, said on Thursday during a conference call. “Negotiations or discussions are progressing well.”
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to a banking agency and a public official. The agency is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, not the Federal Reserve Group of New York. The official is the Manhattan district attorney, not the district attorney of New York.