It's been a summer of discontent for the UK banking sector after regulators at home and abroad exposed a litany of transgressions. Now the spotlight has fallen on Standard Chartered – a bank whose reputation has flourished since 2007 – and the practice of 'wire stripping'.

Standard Chartered Bank, the US subsidiary of Standard Chartered, conspired with its Iranian clients to illegally transfer almost 60,000 secret transactions through its New York branch using a method known as wire stripping, according to allegations made yesterday by the New York State Department of Financial Services.