'DNA' special: Union govt gives clean chit to HSBC’s India employees
The Union government has given a clean chit to HSBC bank saying that none of its activities raise alarm bells from India’s point of view.
The Union government has given a clean chit to HSBC bank saying that none of its activities raise alarm bells from India’s point of view.
India had launched investigations into the working of the bank’s staff in the country following a report by US Senate’s permanent subcommittee on investigations last month. The subcommittee had found deficiencies in the staff’s role as “offshore reviewers”, particularly in compliance to safety mechanism against money laundering and terror financing.
The bank’s India staff was cleared after a preliminary report from the Financial Investigation Unit and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), sources said. However, both the agencies have been asked to continue with their investigation and maintain surveillance of the bank’s activities. Sources added that the two have sought more details on HSBC from US authorities.Highly-placed sources said there was no threat perception or anything suspicious regarding the HSBC staff’s work as offshore reviewers for suspected transaction reports (STRs).Such transaction reports, as per Indian rules, are generated when a transaction worth Rs1 lakh and above is conducted in any of the banks in India. Different countries have different criteria for STRs. These reports are reviewed by the banks, and if anything suspicious is found, intelligence agencies are informed.
US HSBC has outsourced the work to review such transactions to agencies in Pune. And the senate committee had registered that there was lack of quality work and manpower to review such transactions.
“On random checking, we have not found undue clearances of suspected transaction alerts. As far as quality of work and inadequate staff strength in HSBC’s Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Department is concerned, it has nothing to do with us and is between US authorities and the bank,” sources said, adding that it is the US that has outsourced classified job of reviewing STRs to India and should not have painted the staff in a negative light.