Ghana International Bank fined £5.8 million for AML/CFT failings in correspondent banking activities
Ghana International Bank (GIB) has been fined £5.8 million (US$6.9 million) by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for poor anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) financing controls over its correspondent banking activities. London based GIB did not adequately perform checks, neither did…
NatWest fined £264.8 million for AML failings
National Westminster Bank (NatWest) has been fined £264.8 million (US$349.4 million) following convictions for three offences of failing to comply with money laundering regulations. The bank pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this year in the first ever case in which the UK’s Financial Conduct…
HSBC fined nearly US$64 million for failings in AML systems
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined HSBC Bank £63.9 million (US$84.4 million) for failings in its anti-money laundering (AML) processes. Despite the bank’s use of automated processes to monitor hundreds of millions of transactions a month to identify possible financial crime, the FCA…
Wholesale banking, retail banking and wealth management sectors pose greatest money laundering risk
The wholesale banking, retail banking and wealth management sectors in the UK remain vulnerable to financial crime and pose the greatest money laundering risk based on sector risk assessments by the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to the UK treasury’s Anti-money laundering and counterterrorist…
NatWest profits dented by expected fine for AML breaches
NatWest Bank has booked a £294 million (US$402 million) litigation charge in its quarterly results released 29 October to pay for anti-money laundering (AML) failures that led to censure from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). A huge fine is in prospect. The bank in…
UK regulator says some of its biggest sanctions related to financial crime and AML failure
Two of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA’s) biggest sanctions in the last 12 months related to failures to address financial crime and anti-money laundering (AML) risks according to the authority’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Mark Steward. Speaking at the AML &…
War against money laundering being lost
The global system for financial crime is hugely expensive and largely ineffective according to The Economist. The international weekly newspaper and online publisher concludes in an article that the war against money-laundering is being lost.
UK regulator brings first prosecution of a bank for money laundering
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it has commenced criminal proceedings against National Westminster Bank Plc (NatWest) in respect of offences under money laundering regulations enacted in 2007. This is the first criminal prosecution under the act by the FCA and the…
Majority of UK firms hardly halfway through implementation plans for 5MLD
Regulated firms in the UK’s banking, lending, wealth management and estate agents sectors are only 55 per cent of the way through their implementation plans for the European Union’s Fifth Money Laundering Directive (5MLD) according to new research from global data and analytics provider LexisNexis…
UK money laundering watchdog ditches half of its inquiries
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates the country’s 60,000 financial services firms and financial markets, has abandoned half of its inquiries into money laundering breaches and is embarked on a series of reforms aimed at making the regulator more effective. Established in 2013…
