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Frozen $500 mln in Angolan fraud probe came from central bank account with Standard Chartered

Comments (0) Actualites, Africa

LUANDA/LONDON (Reuters) – The $500 million at the centre of an alleged fraud involving the son of Angola’s former president was transferred out of a Standard Chartered account held by Angola’s central bank, the British bank told Reuters on Wednesday.

The Angolan prosecutor general’s office said on Monday it had charged Jose Filomeno dos Santos, the former president’s son, and Valter Filipe da Silva, the former governor of the central bank known as Banco Nacional de Angola, with fraud over the case.

Britain’s National Crime Agency said last week that $500 million had been frozen in the UK as part of an investigation into a potential fraud against Angola’s central bank and could be returned to the southern African country.

“We are aware that our client, Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA), was the victim of an attempted fraud in Angola which involved the transfer of funds from their Standard Chartered Bank account,” Standard Chartered said in an emailed response to questions.

The bank did not respond to a question on how the transaction appeared to bypass security mechanisms.

The Angolan central bank, which has so far made no public statement about the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dos Santos is the highest profile figure charged since President Joao Lourenco succeeded longtime leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos last September pledging to tackle an endemic culture of corruption in the oil-producing country.

Reuters was unable to immediately contact Jose Filomeno dos Santos. He said in a statement circulated in Angolan media on Tuesday that he was cooperating with the investigation and had handed his passports in to the prosecutor general’s office.

Reuters has also been unable to reach Da Silva for comment.

Standard Chartered said it is closely cooperating with Angola’s central bank and British law enforcement.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday that HSBC had frozen a bank account in connection with the alleged fraud.

The Financial Times, which reported the HSBC bank freeze earlier, said documents purporting to be from Swiss bank Credit Suisse were also used in the fraud.

The documents were fake and Credit Suisse was not involved in the transaction, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Britain’s National Crime Agency said the funds were frozen after the transaction raised suspicions, without naming the banks involved.

Standard Chartered, which has operations across Asia and Africa, ended its dollar-clearing operations with commercial banks in Angola in Dec. 2015 because it deemed it too risky.

Singapore said last week its central bank had imposed penalties of nearly $5 million on Standard Chartered Bank and Standard Chartered Trust (Singapore) for breaching money laundering rules and terrorism financing safeguards.

HSBC’s move to freeze the accounts and work with authorities to return the funds will reinforce the lender’s assertion that its efforts to improve financial controls are bearing fruit.

The bank paid $1.9 billion in fines to U.S. authorities in 2012 and agreed to install an independent monitor to improve its anti-money laundering controls, after it was used to launder Mexican cartel drug money.

A five-year period in which the bank faced criminal prosecution if it breached U.S. compliance rules again ended in December.

 

(Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer in Luanda and Lawrence White in London; Editing by Adrian Croft)

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StanChart launches mobile banking push in Africa as rivals retreat

Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) – Standard Chartered is to launch its mobile and online banking platform in eight African countries, its consumer banking chief for the region told Reuters, as the lender seeks to grow in Africa at a time when some European banks are retreating.

StanChart will launch the service for its 1 million customers in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the first half of 2016, the bank’s regional head for retail banking Jaydeep Gupta said.

“Africa’s populations are moving quickly to embrace mobile banking and local banks have made material investments on the digital side, so to protect and grow our market share we are investing,” he said.

Gupta said StanChart hopes to grow long-term retail banking revenues in Africa by three to four times the pace of the region’s growth in economic output.

The bank’s strategy stands in contrast to European rivals who have beat a rapid retreat from Africa in recent years, stung by plunging commodities prices and weaknesses in African currencies.

Barclays said on March 1 it was seeking to sell its African business as part of a plan by new Chief Executive Jes Staley to simplify the bank’s structure.

The International Monetary Fund on May 3 cut its 2016 growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa by 1 percentage point to 3 percent, the lowest level in 15 years and half the average over the last decade.

The tough environment has seen bank stocks in Africa plunge and lenders in countries such as Kenya and Zambia fail.

StanChart is nonetheless expanding its physical presence in the region, adding 10 branches in the Nigerian capital of Lagos as part of a strategy to focus on Africa’s capital and top-tier cities which Gupta said account for roughly 80 percent of consumer banking revenues.

Gupta declined to put a figure on the bank’s Africa investment. Africa accounts for 10 percent or around 8400 of the lender’s total employees, and StanChart made a net loss in the region of $32 million in 2015 on rising bad loans, according to company data.

Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond is also optimistic about the region and is bidding on his former employer’s African unit, even as his investment vehicle Atlas Mara reported a $2 million loss for the first quarter as its African banking investments struggled. [nL5N18N0XB]

StanChart’s Gupta, like Diamond, advocate looking beyond Africa’s short term economic woes.

“Africa is a multi-speed market with some countries such as Kenya bounding ahead while others like Zimbabwe and Nigeria remain challenging, but we see attractive long-term growth opportunities for the continent,” Gupta said.

 

(By Lawrence White. Editing by John O’Donnell, Greg Mahlich)

 

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StanChart eyes growth from African companies with broader horizons

Comments (0) Africa, Business, Latest Updates from Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Growing African businesses looking to sell their products and services beyond the continent present a growth opportunity for Standard Chartered, the bank’s chairman said on Friday.

The group has operations in 16 African nations, including Kenya, and offers services via correspondent banks in 22 more markets in Africa, where sliding commodities prices have put the brakes on previously strong growth.

Rival Barclays has responded by reducing its exposure to Africa, but StanChart takes an alternative view.

“We see Africa as an opportunity to invest rather than exit or divest,” Standard Chartered Chairman John Peace told Reuters in Nairobi, adding that the Internet and other technology is linking more African companies to global trade.

“You can run a business, not just a large corporation but a medium-size business, here in Kenya and be connected to the world,” he said. “Banks, therefore, have a duty to be able to support that connectivity and that is what we are trying to do.”

The World Bank cut its 2016 growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa this week to 3.3 percent, from a previous estimate of 4.4 percent, citing the drop in commodities prices.

Commodity exporter South Africa and oil producer Nigeria have been hit hard. But Kenya, an oil importer now enjoying cheaper crude prices, has kept annual growth around 6 percent.

Peace said that Standard Chartered’s wealth-management products were finding customers in nations such as Kenya.

“We certainly, as part of our new strategy globally, emphasise the opportunity we have in retail, the opportunity we have in private banking and wealth management, and I think that is true in Kenya and in Africa,” Peace said.

Standard Chartered has not, however, been immune to the commodities slide and has adjusted its risk profile accordingly.

“We tightened our risk tolerance, recognising that things are going to remain choppy for the foreseeable future,” said Peace, who has said that he wants to retire from his post at the end of this year.

 

 

(By Duncan Miriri. Editing by Edmund Blair and David Goodman)

 

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