Standard Chartered is reportedly to begin trawling through data to detect any signs of money laundering or other criminality, following faults found in the software that is vital for complying with controls.

Standard Chartered is to begin trawling through data to detect any signs of money laundering or other criminality, following faults found in the software that is vital for complying with controls, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.

The result of such an investigation could affect any penalties that regulators might impose on the UK-listed bank for any breaches, the report said.

The bank declined to speculate when contacted by this publication.

The report said that as the bank clears about two million dollar transactions each month, the task of sifting through such data will be "a huge piece of work" that could take months, a source said.

Shortcomings in the bank’s anti-money laundering systems have been, the news service said, uncovered by a monitor imposed by the New York Department of Financial Services in 2012. At that time, DFS and federal authorities fined the bank a total of $667 million for violating US sanctions by hiding transactions linked to Iran.

This report adds to a run of stories about banks and potential AML lapses. A few weeks ago, BNP Paribas, France’s largest bank by assets, was hit by the US with a record $8.97 billion fine for breaches of controls against blacklisted nations such as Iran and Sudan. The bank has also lost the right for a period to handle certain dollar-denominated transactions. The sheer scale of that fine has prompted anger in France that the US is using its powers in an extra-territorial and harsh manner. The litigation and threats of fines create an additional cloud hanging over the heads of non-US banks, particularly in the case of Swiss firms where they have been hit by pressure against Swiss bank secrecy laws.

The news service said that due to latest issues, Standard Chartered is once again under scrutiny from the DFS, as it disclosed when announcing its earnings last week. A penalty of more than $100 million and an extension of the monitoring is possible beyond its anticipated end in early 2015, a source is quoted as having said.

The report said StanChart has declined comment; the DFS also declined to comment, it said.

The outcome of the bank’s review of transactions could affect the size of penalties that the US imposes, the report said. Transaction-monitoring software was imposed late in the previous decade.

Standard Chartered's report on its interim results can be viewed here. Recently, there has been speculation - firmly knocked down by the bank - that it is considering a successor to its current chief executive, Peter Sands. He said at the time of the results announcement that overall figures for the bank had been disappointing.