RBS agrees $100m US settlement over sanction breaches The US Treasury said that RBS removed references to US-sanctioned locations from payment messages sent to US banks. In the case of customers who wished to deal with Iran, RBS developed "written procedures" telling its own staff to list the name of the Iranian bank rather than the numeric bank identifier code on wire transfers to prevent its own payment system from automatically picking up the references. As well as the financial penalties, RBS has been issued with a "cease and desist" order by the Fed under which the bank "must improve...[its] programmes for compliance with US economic sanctions." The Financial Conduct Authority, the bank's conduct regulator in the UK, will help to supervise this order. The US Department of Justice and the District Attorney of New York have now closed their criminal investigations with no action taken. RBS is the fourth British bank to fall foul of US sanctions, following on from Lloyds, which agreed to pay £350m for helping customers get around sanctions on Libya, Sudan and Iran in January 2009, Barclays, which paid $200m in 2010, and Standard Chartered, which over 2011 and 2012 paid a total of $667m in fines in relation to Iran sanction breaches. It is also not the first time as a group that RBS has fallen foul of US sanctions. In May 2010, ABN Amro, then part of RBS, agreed to pay $500m in fines in relation to sanctions against countries including Iran. "We remain resolute in enforcing our comprehensive sanctions against Iran, and we will continue to take aggressive action against those who would flout our law," said David Cohen, US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, as he announced the settlement in Washington DC. The bank said in a statement that the settlement has been fully provisioned for, and emphasised that since uncovering the breaches it has committed almost £300m to strengthen its control on such sanctions, including by recruiting 730 employees to take its money laundering and sanctions team to 1,700. News of the deal came 24 hours after the resignation of RBS group finance director Nathan Bostock just 10 weeks into the job. He is leaving to become deputy chief executive of Santander UK. Shares in RBS closed down 10.4 at 326.3p yesterday, wiping £1.17bn from the company's value.