Standard Chartered ratings unaffected by settlement
08/15/2012| 10:46am US/Eastern
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Major rating agencies said they will not change their ratings of Standard Chartered Plc and its subsidiaries as a result of the British bank's $340 million settlement with New York's banking regulators but are monitoring further developments.
McGraw-Hill Cos Inc's Standard & Poor's Corp unit said that the penalty will erode the bank's 2012 profitability but will not be "significant enough to weaken its capitalization materially." It added that it continues to monitor legal and regulatory actions against Standard Chartered for evading U.S. prohibitions against banking activities with Iran and its citizens. The full extent of the consequences "remains uncertain," it said.
Moody's Corp's Moody's Investors Service characterized the settlement as "a positive credit development" but said it, too, remains vigilant because of ongoing investigations of the bank's money-laundering activities and controls.
Standard Chartered, the seventh-largest clearer of U.S. dollars globally, on Tuesday settled with New York's Department of Financial Services, which had threatened to revoke its banking license. It is still being probed by the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the Justice Department and New York prosecutors.
(This story corrects settlement day in last paragraph to Tuesday)
(Reporting By Jed Horowitz; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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