(Wall Street Journal) L. Gordon Crovitz - Today, finance is conducted digitally, making it possible - so long as banks cooperate - to impose economic sanctions on belligerents like Iran. Last week New York's top bank regulator alleged that a large British bank, Standard Chartered, had become a "rogue institution" that "schemed" with Iran to cover up illegal transactions, leaving the "U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists." Standard Chartered will have to explain to regulators its alleged "wire stripping," a practice that deleted the names of Iranian banks from the digital records of U.S. dollar wire transfers. Standard Chartered bankers inserted "No name given" in the required message field in order to hide the names of Iranian customers. Any bank that helps Iran's nuclear ambitions by undermining sanctions deserves all the harm done to its reputation.
2012-08-14 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive