We all know that behind the love of money is a deeper malignity in the form of God’s adversary and spiritual pride etc. But as far as practically on earth – the Bible was spot on when it said the love of money is the root of all evil (note the words ‘love of’ there and not money itself). Just read this excerpt from wikipedia below on the well-known and friendly high street UK bank HSBC to understand what the nature of banks really is – and you will see it is clear they are not nice fluffy businesses making an honest living from the hard-earned money we kindly give them to invest in who knows what, but devilish, money hungry beasts – period.
Are you kidding?!..
Nope – even if only 1/10 of what is written below has any hint of truth to it, you can see from all the litigation how the love of money in the banking industry is funding crime everywhere on the planet and, it is the banks – the ones to whom we hand over our hard-earned cash that amounts to millions of interest free loans from the public they can then invest and profit from that should actually in reverse – i.e we should be charging them interest – who are investing in a myriad of dodgy deals with our money and carrying on this dreadful stuff. The banks might as well print money out of thin air – oh – I hear the privately owned central banks do already!
Wikipedia
HSBC Controversies
Money laundering
Money laundering has been an issue in Argentina, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, the United States and Switzerland.
Following search warrants and raids beginning in January 2013, in mid-March 2013 Argentina’s main taxing authority accused HSBC of using fake receipts and dummy accounts to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion.[105][106][107]
On 19 July 2012, India investigated alleged violation of safety compliance, in which Indian employees were believed to be involved.[108] On 9 November 2012, Indian activist and politician Arvind Kejriwal said he had details of 700 Indian bank accounts hiding black money with a total value of ₹60 billion (US$890 million) with HSBC in Geneva.[109] In June 2013, a media outlet in India did an undercover expose where HSBC officers were caught on camera agreeing to launder “black money.” HSBC placed these employees on leave pending their own internal investigation.[110]
In early February 2013, appearing before UK’s Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission, CEO Stuart Gulliver acknowledged that the structure of the bank had been “not fit for purpose.” He also stated, “Matters that should have been shared and escalated were not shared and escalated.”[111] HSBC has also been accused of laundering money for terrorist groups.[111][112]
In both 2003 and 2010, U.S. regulators ordered HSBC to strengthen its anti-money laundering practices.[113] In October 2010, the United States OCC issued a Cease and Desist Order requiring HSBC to strengthen multiple aspects of its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) program. The identified problems included a once massive backlog of over 17,000 alerts identifying suspicious activity, failure to file timely suspicious activity reports with U.S. law enforcement, failure to conduct any due diligence to assess risks to HSBC affiliates before opening correspondent accounts for them, a three-year failure by HBUS from mid-2006 to mid-2009 to conduct any AML of $15 billion in bulk cash transactions from those same HSBC affiliates, failure to monitor $60 trillion in annual wire transfers by customers in countries rated lower risk by HBUS, and inadequate and unqualified AML staffing, resources, and leadership. It was noted that HSBC fully cooperated with the Senate investigation.[114]
In November 2012 it was reported that HSBC had set up offshore accounts in Jersey for suspected drug-dealers and other criminals, and that HM Revenue and Customs had launched an investigation following a whistleblower leaking details of £700 million allegedly held in HSBC accounts in the Crown dependency .[115]
In June 2015 HSBC was fined by the Geneva authorities after an investigation into money laundering within its Swiss subsidiary. The fine was 40 million Swiss Francs.
2012 US Senate investigation
In July 2012, a US Senate committee issued a report[116] which stated that HSBC had been in breach of money-laundering rules, had assisted Iran and North Korea circumvent US nuclear-weapons sanctions,[117][118] and other violations.
In December 2012, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer suggested that the U.S. government might resist criminal prosecution of HSBC which could lead to the loss of the bank’s U.S. charter. He stated, “Our goal here is not to bring HSBC down, it’s not to cause a systemic effect on the economy, it’s not for people to lose thousands of jobs.”[113]
In December 2012, HSBC was penalized $1.9 billion (US), the largest fine under the Bank Secrecy Act, for violating four U.S. laws designed to protect the U.S. financial system.[119] HSBC had allegedly laundered at least $881 million in drugs proceeds through the U.S. financial system for international cartels, as well as processing an additional $660 million for banks in US sanctioned countries. According to the report, “The U.S. bank subsidiary [also] failed to monitor more than $670 billion in wire transfers and more than $9.4 billion in purchases of physical dollars from its Mexico unit.”[119] As part of the agreement deferring its prosecution, HSBC acknowledged that for years it had ignored warning signs that drug cartels in Mexico were using its branches to launder millions of dollars, and also acknowledged that HSBC’s international staff had stripped identifying information on transactions made through the United States from countries facing economic sanctions such as Iran and Sudan.[113]
A February 2013 article in Rolling Stone magazine, which was critical of what they regarded as the timid response by the U.S. Justice Department, stated “Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks’ profit – but they didn’t extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses” and further stated, “In this case, the bank literally got away with murder – well, aiding and abetting it, anyway.”[120] A December 2012 CNNMoney article compared the 1.9 billion dollar fine to HSBC’s profit “last year” (2011) of 16.8 billion.[113]
Other controversies
Deforestation
In the report titled “In the Future There Will Be No Forests Left” produced by Global Witness, the bank is also being accused of supporting the seven largest Malaysian timber conglomerates which are responsible for rapid deforestation in the Malaysian state of Sarawak without any FSC certifications.[121] However, the bank declined to divulge its clients on this issue, citing the confidentiality of its clients; but the bank maintains that the accusations that its clients violate forestland and forest-products policy is not accurate.[122]
Gaddafi regime in Libya
HSBC also held billions of dollars of assets for the Libyan Investment Authority, which was controlled by ColonelMuammar Gaddafi; after Gaddafi’s overthrow and assassination, the bank refused to reveal information about the funds, citing customer confidentiality.[123][124][125]
Heavy-handed application of money-laundering rules
In 2014, HSBC refused to allow customers to withdraw large cash amounts without a third-party letter confirming what the money would be used for.[126] Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Clacton, was alarmed by the HSBC policy: “All these regulations which have been imposed on banks allow enormous interpretation. It basically infantilises the customer. In a sense your money becomes pocket money and the bank becomes your parent.”
In 2014, HSBC closed North London Central Mosque‘s account and some Muslim clients’ and groups’ accounts.[127][128][129][130][131][132][133] Several sources report that allegedly HSBC closed them because they donated their money to Gaza through Hamas linked charities during the 2014 Israel–Gaza war.[134][135][136]
Staff lay-offs
In June 2015, HSBC announced a reduction in the number of employees that work for the company, expected to be between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
Payments-processing failures
In August 2015, HSBC failed to process BACS payments, leaving thousands of people without their salaries.[138] This left customers unable to complete house purchases, and unable to pay for essential home care.[
I love God, Christ, The Bible. art, painting, playing music, improvising music, guitar (first instrument), drumming (not very good at it:), and anything musical or art related. Quick note – my articles are usually spun off in minutes so forgive any errors – hopefully you get the essence of the article and I’ll pick up mistakes later. If you want to write of 101ChristianMagazine and inspire and edify Christians with articles on faith, general news, hobbies or anything that interests you email me at: epgb101@gmail.com:)
