Standard Chartered slammed by Japanese regulator

Tokyo -- Standard Chartered, a financial institution that focuses on emerging markets, was heavily penalised by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) for allegedly violating anti-money rules regulations in late February.

The FSA has prohibited the UK-based bank from offering certain key services to new clients for a year because it said the bank failed to implement certain anti-money laundering procedures. The bank allegedly laundered $56 million for the Yakuza -- Japanese gangsters -- according to Japanese press reports.

The FSA, in a statement, said Standard Chartered had failed to run customer identification checks and produce transaction records for a series of remittance transactions by "an underground