FSA fines bank and money laundering reporting officer – The FSA has fined Habib Bank AG Zurich (Habib) £525,000 and its former Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) Syed Hussain £17,500 (both with a 30 per cent discount) for failure to take reasonable care to establish and maintain adequate anti-money laundering systems and controls, in breach of Principle 3 of the FSA’s Principles for Business and Principle 7 of the FSA’s Statements of Principle for Approved Persons, respectively.
The FSA’s investigation identified that during the period 15 December 2007 to 15 November 2010, Habib failed to establish and maintain adequate controls for assessing the level of money laundering risk posed by its customers, of which 45 per cent were based outside the UK and about half of its deposits came from jurisdictions which, according to independent international organisations, had less stringent AML requirements or were perceived to have higher levels of corruption than the UK. The FSA also found that Habib failed to conduct adequate enhanced due diligence in relation to higher risk customers and, in some files reviewed, incorrectly classified a customer as normal rather than higher risk or did not conduct the enhanced due diligence prior to a transaction.
Mr Hussain, as the MLRO, was responsible for oversight of anti-money laundering systems and controls but failed to take reasonable steps to ensure that they were adequate.
Copies of Habib’s final notice, Mr Hussain’s final notice and the related press release are available.
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