NEW YORK - Multiple US regulators announced fines on an American affiliate of Swiss bank UBS for failure to uphold anti-money-laundering laws.
Characterising UBS as a "recidivist financial institution" after falling short of its commitments under a 2018 settlement on the same issue, the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) described Monday's $125 million civil penalty as the largest against a broker-dealer for Bank Secrecy Act violations.
"Repeat violators of the Bank Secrecy Act jeopardise the integrity of our financial system, especially those that expose it to high-risk customers and activities without effective controls," said FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki.
The agency said UBS had failed to adequately monitor over 50,000 foreign currency wires with a value of more than $10 billion.
UBS also neglected to perform sufficient due diligence on high-risk customers with ties to Russia and Latin America. This meant the company "failed to timely report hundreds of suspicious transactions, thereby depriving law enforcement of critical information," FinCEN said.
A consent order requires UBS to work with a third party on a "lookback" audit addressing priority risk areas, such as "possible narcotics trafficking" connected to the US Southwest border, as well as Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
FinCEN's enforcement acted in parallel with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
The Swiss banking giant described the enforcement as bringing closure to a "legacy matter."
"UBS has cooperated fully with its regulators and has made significant investments to remediate and strengthen its AML (anti-money-laundering) program in line with leading industry practices," a company spokesman said.
- AFP