Another case of the tail wagging the dog

摘要

I wonder if the chief executives of the big bulge-bracket banks have yet succumbed to a condition I will refer to as "fine envy". That would mean that you're not really in with the big boys unless US prosecutors have fined you in the billions, or - if the huge fines recently doled out to JP Morgan and BNP Paribas signal a rising trend - in the tens of billions. If the condition really does exist, poor old Peter Sands, CEO of Standard Chartered, must surely be a sufferer. The institution he heads was last week given a paltry US$300m fine by the New York Department of Financial Services for failing to keep tabs on potential money-laundering activity from its clients in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Just US$300m? How terribly embarrassing. Better to be hanged for a sheep than a goat, as the old expression has it. If you're going to get fined, make sure it's an eye-popping number that makes the man on the Clapham omnibus exhale in outrage.