BNP Paribas wants to thank you for your loyalty after they financed terrorist regimes.
The French bank’s chief executive officer, Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, wrote an open letter that expressed his “deep regret” for financing trade in blacklisted nations like Iran, Sudan and Cuba for at least eight years, including some of his time as BNP’s head.
The letter came one day after the bank agreed to almost $9 billion in fines — the largest ever for a foreign bank by US regulators — and to not process some trades in dollars for all of 2015.
Wall Street reacted positively to BNP’s money laundering fine, with the bank’s stock rising 3.6 percent at the end of the day.
That was in part because the fine won’t impact plans to issue a 1.50 euro dividend this year, matching last year’s return of cash.