Standard Chartered Trust (Guernsey) Limited (2021-04-23)

Summary

This is a public enforcement statement issued by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission (GFSC) concerning Standard Chartered Trust (Guernsey) Limited, a fiduciary licensee now in liquidation. It records the Commission's decision of 4 June 2020 to impose a financial penalty of £140,000 and to publish this statement, following findings that the firm failed to meet the Minimum Criteria for Licensing under the Fiduciaries Law.

• Block transfer failings: The firm took on a block of high-risk clients from a related Group company without adequate due diligence, bypassing normal on-boarding procedures and Compliance involvement.
• Due diligence and monitoring breaches: Breaches of Regulations 4 (Customer Due Diligence), 5 (Enhanced Due Diligence) and 11 (ongoing monitoring), including failure to corroborate source of wealth/funds for USD 1.1 billion of client assets and mismanagement of PEP risk.
• Mass transfer of assets: Between 2015 and 2016 the firm transferred or terminated USD 1.4 billion in client assets (predominantly Indonesian clients) to an affiliate without adequately investigating red flags suggesting possible tax evasion; USD 265 million was later linked to an Indonesian tax amnesty.
• Record-keeping and reporting failures: Breaches of Regulation 14 (record keeping) and Regulation 12(f) and 15 (suspicious activity reporting and AML/CFT controls), including inadequate email archiving and delayed suspicious activity disclosures.

The statement is historical and enforcement-focused: it explains the findings, aggravating and mitigating factors behind the penalty against this specific (now liquidated) licensee, and does not itself create new ongoing obligations for other firms, though it restates GFSC's expectations under the Fiduciaries Law, the AML/CFT Regulations and the Code of Corporate Governance.

Applies to

fiduciary licensees, trust and company service providers, financial services businesses subject to the Criminal Justice (Proceeds of Crime) (Financial Services Businesses) Regulations