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Standard Chartered has denied laundering money for Iran

Shares in scandal-hit Standard Chartered have rebounded, showing signs of recovery after their steepest one-day decline in decades.

Shares opened 6.5% higher in London morning trade, after wiping $17bn off the bank's market value on Tuesday.

New York's State Department of Financial Services has accused the bank of laundering as much as $250bn (161bn) for US-sanctioned Iran, and threatened to revoke its NY licence.

The bank has denied the allegations.

But the latest accusation against a British bank from US authorities has angered some politicians in Britain, who have spoken of a perceived "anti-British bias" in Washington, designed to weaken London as a financial centre.

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, warned that regulation in New York should not become "a self-interested attack on London's status as the pre-eminent financial centre".

‘Anti-British bias’

John Mann, a member of the UK Parliament's finance committee, said: "I think it's a concerted effort that's been organised at the top of the US government. I think this is Washington trying to win a commercial battle to have trading from London shifted to New York."

Standard Chartered Last Updated at 08 Aug 2012, 05:23 ET *Chart shows local time

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Calling for a Parliamentary inquiry, Mr Mann said there was an "anti-British bias" behind "disproportionate publicity that's given to British banking problems, as opposed to American banking problems. This is a political onslaught."

A US Senate Committee last month accused HSBC of laundering huge sums of Mexican drug money, as well as suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve were "blindsided and angered" by the allegation launched by Benjamin Lawsky, who heads New York's financial services department, according to sources quoted by Reuters news agency.

A report compiled by Mr Lawsky accused the bank of hiding 60,000 secret transactions over nearly a decade, which generated hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for Standard Chartered.

But the bank has denied the allegations, saying that it "strongly rejects the position or portrayal of facts as set out in the order" issued by the regulator.