WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) – UBS was fined $125 million by U.S. regulators for alleged willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, the main U.S. anti-money laundering law.
Monday’s civil fine against UBS Financial Services is the largest ever imposed on a broker-dealer for Bank Secrecy Act violations, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said UBS was a recidivist, having been fined $14.5 million in 2018 for failing to adequately monitor foreign currency wires.
FinCEN said that despite assuring it would soon address the underlying problems, UBS failed to appropriately monitor more than 50,000 foreign currency wires totaling more than $10 billion, or disclose its failings.
“Today’s announcement brings closure to this legacy matter,” UBS said in a statement. “UBS has cooperated fully with its regulators and has made significant investments to remediate and strengthen its AML program in line with leading industry practices.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Ljunggren and David Holmes)