London, July 18 (ANI): British multinational bank, HSBC's compliance chief has resigned after owning up to facilitating a multi-billion-dollar money-laundering operation for drug gangs, terrorists and rogue nations worldwide.

David Bagley, HSBC's global head of compliance who had worked at the bank for 20 years, resigned from his position.

Bagley, who will stay with the bank, admitted HSBC had fallen short of our own and regulators' expectations.

The U.S. Senate ruled that the bank was pervasively polluted for a long time as it allowed funds to be shifted to and from its branches in the United States as far afield as Mexico, Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

We have sometimes failed to meet the standards regulators and customer expect... we take responsibility for fixing what went wrong, The Telegraph quoted HSBC CEO Stuart Gulliver, as saying, as he issued an apology.Bagley accepted that HSBC had overhauled its systems since the failures were found and was committed to cleaning its house.

HSBC, the only British bank with US branches, is now braced for a substantial fine which analysts said could be up to one billion dollar.

A yearlong investigation and a 335-page report by the Senate's Committee on Homeland Security said that HSBC accepted more than 15 billion dollar in cash between 2006 and 2009 from Mexico, Russia and other countries at high risk of money-laundering but failed properly to monitor transactions.The bank even managed to label Mexico, ravaged by corruption and drug wars, as low risk, the committee said.The latest banking scandal of HSBC comes in the wake of Barclays' 290 million pound fine for its role in rigging Libor. (ANI)