If Credit Lyonnais is convicted of fraud in the US, it could lose its banking licence there.
All that a banking licence would do would be to make it easier for the ESM to borrow up to that limit.
Law enforcers had been sniffing around Sir Allen since the late 1990s, after he lost his banking licence in Montserrat, another Caribbean island.
He wants the bloc's permanent rescue fund (the ESM) to be given a banking licence so it can borrow directly from the European Central Bank.
What apparently weighed on Mr Breuer was that a criminal indictment of HSBC could have led it to lose its banking licence in New York.
The bank was originally co-founded by Kotak and tractor tycoon Anand Mahindra in 1985 as a small financial services firm which acquired a banking licence in 2003.
Perhaps Mario Draghi will once again bring the ECB to the rescue, after the central bank's regular meeting next week, by agreeing to give the ESM a banking licence after all.
The bank faces claims that it hid 60, 000 secret transactions for "Iranian financial institutions" that were subject to US economic sanctions, and has been threatened with having its US banking licence revoked.
So, for this to be a realistic proposal, Germany needs to be willing to allow the ESM to obtain a banking licence, so it can borrow much larger amounts from the ECB.
Overall, Asda Money is still dwarfed by the operation of Tesco Bank, which is fully owned by the supermarket, has 6.5 million customers, and - unlike Asda - has its own banking licence.
"Reaching an early settlement means that StanChart avoids the potentially awkward hearing with the NYDFS.... and, critically, eliminates the immediate risk that the bank could lose its New York banking licence, " Symonds said.
In the past, it's true that some had suggested that granting the ESM a banking licence would enable it to increase its lending capacity, because it would then be able to borrow directly from the ECB.
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