NEW YORK: US banking regulators ordered Pakistan’s Habib Bank to shutter its New York office after nearly 40 years, for repeatedly failing to heed concerns over possible terrorist financing and money laundering, officials said Thursday.
Habib, Pakistan’s largest private bank, neglected to watch for compliance problems and red flags on transactions that potentially could have promoted terrorism, money laundering or other illicit ends, New York banking officials said.
The state’s Department of Financial Services, which regulates foreign banks, also slapped a $225 million fine on the bank, although that is much smaller than the $629.6 million penalty initially proposed.
Habib has operated in the United States since 1978, and in 2006 was ordered to tighten its oversight of potentially illegal transactions but failed to comply.
New York regulators said Habib facilitated billions of dollars of transactions with a Mideast private bank, which reportedly has links to Al-Qaeda, and failed to do enough to ensure that the funds were not laundered or used for terrorism.
“DFS will not tolerate inadequate risk and compliance functions that open the door to the financing of terrorist activities that pose a grave threat to the people of this State and the financial system as a whole,” DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo said in a news release.
“The bank has repeatedly been given more than sufficient opportunity to correct its glaring deficiencies, yet it has failed to do so.”
Habib permitted at least 13,000 transactions that were not sufficiently screened to ensure they did not involve sanctioned countries, the agency said.
And the bank improperly used a “good guy” list to rubber stamp at least $250 million in transactions, including those by an identified terrorist and an international arms dealer, regulators said.
In an August letter to the Pakistan Stock Exchange, Habib company secretary Nausheen Ahmad called the proposed fine of $629.6 million “outrageous” and “capricious” and said the bank had decided to close its New York operations “in an orderly manner.”
But DFS said Habib will have to surrender its license after it meets the agency’s requirements.
“DFS will not stand by and let Habib Bank sneak out of the United States,” Vullo said.
![]()
US shuts down Pakistani bank over terror-financing and money laundering concerns
US shuts down Pakistani bank over terror-financing and money laundering concerns
In South Africa’s affluent Western Cape, farmers lose cattle to drought
- Drought in country’s south follows flooding in north
- Farmers try to adapt but lose livestock
KNYSNA: In South Africa’s most visited and affluent province, Western Cape, one of the worst droughts in living memory is drying up dams, scorching grass and killing livestock, prompting the government to declare a national emergency this month.
Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.
Over the weekend, mixed-race couple Christian and Ilze Pienaar were distributing feed to keep their hungry cattle alive. One cow had recently starved to death, its bones visible through its skin.
“The drought before wasn’t this bad because there was still ... grazing,” Ilze, 40, told Reuters. “Now there’s nothing, the dams are dry ... (and) we’re spending all our money on feed.”
She said she’d lost 16 cattle and 13 sheep since January alone.
The drought, which has also ravaged parts of Eastern Cape and Northern Cape, comes weeks after floods blamed on climate change and cyclical La Niña weather washed out the northeastern part of South Africa and killed 200 people across the region.
“The intensity and duration of both droughts and floods in this corner of the world is increasing,” Anton Cartwright, an economist with the African Center for Cities, said.
“Farmers (here) are very good at adapting to weather (but) ... the weather is just becoming much less predictable,” he said. “Seasons aren’t occurring, starting, ending at the same time of the year. It’s probably going to get worse.”
(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Scientists say climate change is causing worsening droughts in the province, which draws tourists to its vineyards, beaches and the lush slopes of Table Mountain above Cape Town, but lies on the edge of the advancing semi-desert Karoo. In 2015, a drought almost dried up the taps in the city; farmers say this one has been even more brutal than a decade ago.
Over the weekend, mixed-race couple Christian and Ilze Pienaar were distributing feed to keep their hungry cattle alive. One cow had recently starved to death, its bones visible through its skin.
“The drought before wasn’t this bad because there was still ... grazing,” Ilze, 40, told Reuters. “Now there’s nothing, the dams are dry ... (and) we’re spending all our money on feed.”
She said she’d lost 16 cattle and 13 sheep since January alone.
The drought, which has also ravaged parts of Eastern Cape and Northern Cape, comes weeks after floods blamed on climate change and cyclical La Niña weather washed out the northeastern part of South Africa and killed 200 people across the region.
“The intensity and duration of both droughts and floods in this corner of the world is increasing,” Anton Cartwright, an economist with the African Center for Cities, said.
“Farmers (here) are very good at adapting to weather (but) ... the weather is just becoming much less predictable,” he said. “Seasons aren’t occurring, starting, ending at the same time of the year. It’s probably going to get worse.”
(Writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.