As the world roiled in the latest leak of documents which exposed how big banks enabled financial crimes and money laundering, the stock market has been hit by the aftermath of the incident.
The Shares of major banks sank on Monday after the leaked documents involving about $2tn transactions marked as possible money laundering or criminal transactions were reported.
An investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Buzzfeed published Sunday alleged that world’s biggest banks including JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC “kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players” after US authorities fined the banks for failing to combat dirty transactions.
According to the report, the transactions include $514 billion flowing through JPMorgan and $1.3 trillion through Deutsche Bank.
Share performance on Monday at the time of this report
- JP Morgan is down 4.42% to $94.00
- Deutsche Bank is down 9.90% to $8.19
- HSBC is down 6.59% to $18.43
Performance of indices
- Dow 30 is down by 2.96%
- S & P 500 is down by 2.29%
- NASDAQ is down by 1.00%
What the banks said
HSBC told ICIJ in a statement that it “embarked on a multi-year journey” to update projections against financial crime after admitting to laundering at least $881 million in 2012.
JPMorgan told the reporters it has taken a “leadership role” in investigating criminal activity and developing “innovative techniques to help combat financial crime.”
Deutsche Bank said in an online statement while responding to ICIJ’s report, that it has “devoted significant resources to strengthening our controls” and meeting obligations. The “historic issues” raised in the report “have already been investigated and led to regulatory resolutions in which the bank’s cooperation and remediation was publicly recognized,” the bank added.
Written by;
Ifunanya Ikueze