NEWS DESK: Habib Bank Ltd (HBL) is likely to face civil monetary penalty of up to Rs67 billion as the US financial regulator has issued the bank notices for its operation in New York.

According to a letter written by the bank to Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) to intimate its members, HBL announced shutting down its operations at the New York branch. “Steps to formalize this will commence shortly,” reads the letter signed by the company’s secretary, Nausheen Ahmad.

The letter, written on August 28, was copied to the director of Surveillance, Supervision & Enforcement Department of Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan.

The letter states that the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) seeks to ‘impose an outrageous civil monetary penalty of up to US$629,625,000′ (amounting to Rs66,346,734,375) on HBL. “HBL shall vigorously contest this in the scheduled administrative hearing and the courts of law in the United States, as being unjustified, capricious, unreasonable, not supported by facts or law and as being time barred,” reads the letter.

The amount of the fine is over the amount of profit the bank made in 2016. Last year, profit before tax made by HBL was Rs56.5 billion as per their annual report published for 2016.