Standard Chartered fined £46.5m by Bank of England for misreporting liquidity

The Bank of England has fined banking giant Standard Chartered £46.55 million for misreporting its liquidity position and controls failures.

The central bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) watchdog said the fine related to failings made at the bank between March 2018 and May 2019.

It said Standard Chartered made five regulatory reporting errors over the period, during which the PRA had imposed a temporary extra liquidity requirement of the bank due to outflows of dollars in the previous year.

The PRA said the bank had only told it about one of the mistakes following an internal four-month review process.

Sam Woods, deputy governor for prudential regulation at the Bank of England and chief executive officer of the PRA, said: “We expect firms to notify us promptly of any material issues with their regulatory reporting, which Standard Chartered failed to do in this case.

“Standard Chartered’s systems, controls and oversight fell significantly below the standards we expect of a systemically important bank, and this is reflected in the size of the fine in this case.”

The PRA added that its investigation found that Standard Chartered also failed to implement a documented policy setting out when liquidity errors should be notified to the regulator.

It also found the bank failed to maintain and operate adequate controls testing and checks over liquidity.

The bank did not ensure it has appropriate human resources to investigate potential misreporting, the PRA added.

Standard Chartered saw its potential punishment reduced by 30% from £66.5 million after agreeing to resolve the matter.

A spokesman for Standard Chartered said it “accepts the findings” of the PRA related to liquidity reporting errors it said it “self-identified and self-corrected in 2018 and 2019”.

“These errors did not affect Standard Chartered’s overall liquidity position, which remained in surplus throughout the period,” it added.

“Standard Chartered has cooperated proactively and fully with the PRA’s investigation and has made significant improvements to and substantial investment in its liquidity and regulatory reporting processes and controls and remains committed to accurate regulatory reporting.”

Shares in the company were 1.5% lower in early trading.