{"id":111207,"date":"2026-08-03T14:17:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/111207\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:17:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T14:17:32","slug":"breaking-ubs-fined-record-125m-by-fincen-over-willful-aml-breaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/111207\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: UBS fined record $125m by FinCEN over \u2018willful\u2019 AML breaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

By PAUL O\u2019DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent<\/p>\n

FINCEN, the U.S. Treasury\u2019s anti-money laundering agency, has imposed a record $125 million penalty on UBS Financial Services (UBSFS) for what it said were willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).<\/p>\n

Additionally, FINRA, the US broker watchdog, has fined UBSFS $20 million over similar issues.<\/p>\n

UBSFS, the U.S. broker-dealer of Swiss banking group UBS, previously settled allegations with FinCEN in 2018.<\/p>\n

The regulator said the latest penalty reflects the firm\u2019s failure to remedy those deficiencies. <\/p>\n

FinCEN said the penalty is the largest ever imposed on a broker-dealer for breaches of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the main U.S. AML law. <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite UBSFS assuring FinCEN that it would soon remediate the underlying issues, UBSFS did not do so,\u201d FinCEN said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It] subsequently failed to appropriately monitor over 50,000 foreign currency wires with an aggregate value of more than $10 billion.\u201d<\/p>\n

FinCEN said that UBSFS did not disclose these failings to FinCEN. The regulator said it learned of them \u201conly through a subsequent investigation FinCEN initiated following a regulatory examination\u201d.<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cAs part of its resolution with FinCEN, UBSFS admits that it willfully violated the BSA, including failing to implement and maintain an AML program, and file suspicious activity reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement, UBS said: \u201cToday\u2019s announcement brings closure to this legacy matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cUBS has cooperated fully with its regulators and has made significant investments to remediate and strengthen its AML program in line with leading industry practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

UBS FinCEN and FINRA penalties<\/p>\n

FINRA also raised the same breaches when announcing its own fine. In December 2018, FINRA also\u00a0fined UBS Financial $4.5 million<\/a>\u00a0for failing to reasonably monitor foreign currency wires.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween January 2019 and June 2023, UBS Financial failed to reasonably monitor more than 60,000 foreign currency wires totaling more than $10 billion,\u201d it said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn settling this matter, UBS Financial accepted and consented to the entry of FINRA\u2019s findings, without admitting or denying them.\u201d<\/p>\n

FinCEN\u2019s consent order requires UBSFS to appoint a third party to conduct a lookback review and identify suspicious transactions that went undetected. <\/p>\n

The firm must also undergo an independent review of its AML programme, covering risks related to cartels, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.<\/p>\n

FinCEN said it will \u201cwaive up to $15 million\u201d for the expenses incurred by UBSFS\u00a0in connection with the reviews.<\/p>\n

FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said: \u201cToday\u2019s historic action against UBSFS should send a clear message that recidivist financial institutions will face severe repercussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinancial institutions that continue to violate the BSA jeopardize the integrity of our financial system, especially those that by expose it to high-risk customers and activities without effective controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AMLWe hope you enjoyed reading this article<\/p>\n

If you would like unlimited access to AML Intelligence premium articles, newsletter delivered twice a week, access to our Global Bank Fines and Penalties database, free access to Boardroom Series events and much more, select one of our subscription options and become a subscriber!<\/p>\n

View subscription options<\/a>If you have an account, log in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By PAUL O\u2019DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent FINCEN, the U.S. Treasury\u2019s anti-money laundering agency, has imposed a record $125 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[54329,54330,17,223,714],"class_list":["post-111207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ubs","tag-department-of-the-treasury","tag-fincen","tag-switzerland","tag-ubs","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117032009280062830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}