http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-29/an-hsbc-london-asks-over-40...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-29/an-hsbc-london-asks-over-40-diplomatic-missions-to-close-their-/4923404

Post Courier: PNG Gov't having problems w/ it's bank accounts in London????

Monday 02nd September 2013

HSBC: Close bank accounts

International banking giant HSBC has asked more than 40 diplomatic missions in London to close their bank accounts, including accounts in Papua New Guinea.

Commentators are suggesting it may be an attempt by the banking giant to recoup its reputation after one of the world’s biggest money-laundering scandals saw HSBC in the United States fined $US2 billion.

John Balavu, Port Moresby’s acting High Commissioner in London, says PNG is not happy about HSBC’s decision to close its London-based accounts. “After banking with them for more than 20 years it came as a surprise,” Mr Balavu said.

Mr Balavu says the decision by HSBC to close PNG’s accounts was for commercial reasons. “London, as you are aware, is a financial hub of the world and these banks, over here, deal with mega-bucks, with mega-returns and we probably didn’t fall into that category,” he said.

Mr Balavu says his efforts to find out more about why PNG’s London-based accounts were to be closed by HSBC has met a brick wall. “I tried to probe further into that question but all they would say is that it was a commercial decision made by the bank but what is behind that commercial decision they could not disclose to us,” he said.

Will McSheehy, the head of media relations for HSBC’s Global Commercial Banking says HSBC does not “comment on individual customer relationships”.

Last year HSBC was fined almost $2 billion dollars in the United States for repeated serious breaches of anti-money laundering legislation.

A 300-page report for the US Senate found the bank had for years acted as a conduit for drug lords and rogue nations, failing to disclose tens of thousands of sensitive transactions amounting to billions of dollars and resisting closing accounts linked to suspicious activity