‘HSBC should accept responsibility for what it has done’
The Lower House and Senate Committee investigating the existence of secret HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland met today with the presence of the bank’s internal auditor Diego Esquenazi, and external auditor Mabel Casillas.
During his presentation, Esquenazi asserted that “As chief of the bank’s internal auditing, I deny all the questions that have been raised in the committee.”
“The Central Bank’s grade lowering is not in line with the work the auditing committee has done. HSBC Argentina does not do private banking and does not participate in money laundering,” the official insisted.
Casillas added that “The use of the Group Messaging Gateway system has no impact on HSBC’s accounting system. It is only for instructional use regarding operations. All financial operations are there in accounting.”
Committee president Roberto Feletti, however, rejected the pair’s denial.
“You must accept responsibility for what you have done,” the lawmaker fired, referring to the bank.
“I want information on the parallel system with which information was passed on outside Argentina, and also on the documents that were not checked and that were revealed in the AFIP’s accusation.”
Feletti explained that “out of the five companies we have called on until now, four have come and given explanations, three have admitted having accounts in Switzerland was part of commercial and financial strategy. Cablevisión is the only one that has not come.”
The committee president affirmed that the Congress judicial service was considering bringing before the courts the need for representatives of Cablevisión to “appear before a judge,” as he repeated his demand for the presence of directors to answer for accounts discovered in HSBC Switzerland.
