The lender saw its shares pressured today, after they fell yesterday due, reports said, to a claim that the bank faces further difficulties over links to Iran.

Shares in UK-listed Standard Chartered, which earns the bulk of its revenue in regions such as Asia, continued to come under pressure today in the wake of a newspaper claim that the bank faces further trouble over links to Iran during a period when sanctions had been imposed on the country.

Around late morning, shares in the lender were down 2.17 per cent, at 677.1 pence per share; they had fallen by more than 4 per cent on 21 September.

On Monday, the Financial Times said that it had identified transactions involving Iran that “could put the bank at risk of severe penalties ranging from further fines to suspension or loss of its crucial dollar clearing licence”. The bank has already paid almost $1 billion in fines to US regulators and other agencies for sanctions violations compliance shortcomings.

When contacted by this publication, the bank declined to comment on the specifics of the FT story, and issued the following statement: "We have been clear that Standard Chartered is co-operating with an investigation related to possible violations of US sanctions and that additional time is needed for the authorities to complete the investigation and determine whether any violations have occurred. Therefore we cannot comment further on the investigation at this time. As a separate matter, following its decision to exit the Iranian business in 2007 the Group had a number of legacy obligations including dormant accounts, outstanding loans and trade-finance agreements. Those legacy obligations have been handled in an appropriate manner in non-US currencies and since 2007 it has been the Group’s policy not to pursue any new business with known Iranian entities. Furthermore, as the US Department of Justice has acknowledged, the Group is taking a number of steps to comply with the requirements of its deferred prosecution agreements and to optimise its sanctions compliance, including more rigorous policies and procedures, certified staff training, hiring of senior legal and financial crime compliance staff and the introduction of additional measures to block payment instructions from countries subject to sanctions."

"While we have made progress on our controls, this is a multi-year effort that requires sustained investment and management attention. We will continue to cooperate with our regulators to achieve the necessary results and to fulfill our important role in the fight against financial crime," it added.

(To view a list of fines and other punishments imposed on banks for various offences in recent years, click here.)

The FT said that, according to documents it has seen, “StanChart continued to seek new business from Iranian and Iran-connected companies after it had committed in 2007 to stop working with such clients”.

“These activities include foreign exchange transactions that, people familiar with StanChart operations say, would have involved the US dollar. The documents suggest the bank — a few months after a costly settlement with US authorities in 2012 — was still internally reviewing its client list and was unable to determine in certain cases whether customers were Iranian or not,” the report said.

The report went on to say: “While it has relatively small operations in the US, the loss of its dollar clearing licence would deal a crippling blow to StanChart’s ability to finance the trade, energy and cross-border activities that have become its main focus.”

The US and European Union have moved to lift sanctions against Iran following a diplomatic accord between Tehran and the Washington DC – although that deal remains controversial in the US, with many Republican and some Democrat politicians in the US concerned that Iran has been given dangerous leeway.