A US enforcement deal puts UBS\u2019s compliance record under renewed scrutiny, with regulators highlighting repeat failures and risks tied to high-risk international clients.<\/p>\n
The agreement between UBS Financial Services and US regulators ended with a $125 million penalty for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and related anti-money laundering regulations. This is one of the largest civil penalties ever imposed in this area for violations of the United States\u2019 primary anti-money laundering law.<\/p>\n
According to FinCEN, UBS Financial Services admitted to willfully violating the BSA by failing to implement and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and failing to file suspicious activity reports.<\/p>\n
The agreement also highlights UBS\u2019s status as a repeat offender after the Swiss bank failed to resolve the issues that led to a $14.5 million penalty in December 2018. The violations reportedly continued from January 2019 through June 2023.<\/p>\n
The settlements also resolved related claims brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.<\/p>\n
In a statement, UBS said it had cooperated with regulators and taken significant steps to strengthen its anti-money laundering program in line with leading industry practices.<\/p>\n
Regulators point to possible links to Russia<\/p>\n
Regulators said UBS had failed to conduct adequate customer due diligence, particularly among high-risk clients with ties to Russia and Latin American countries.<\/p>\n
Those mentioned included a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to media reports, he allegedly opened and maintained accounts at UBS and was suspected of possible money laundering and company-related investment activity involving Iranian digital assets.<\/p>\n
Concerns were also raised about inadequate monitoring of more than 60,000 currency transfers totaling over $10 billion. The 2018 penalty involved similar shortcomings.<\/p>\n
The agreement requires UBS Financial Services to hire an external consultant to review its anti-money laundering program and focus on priority illicit-finance risks, including regions along the southwestern US border, individuals linked to cartel networks, and the possible establishment of operations involving Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, FinCEN reported.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s historic action against UBSFS should send a clear message that repeat-offender financial institutions face serious consequences.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Andrea Gacki<\/p>\n
Regulators\u2019 legislative focus on AML issues and related risks signals intensified oversight of international financial institutions and underscores the need for consistent compliance with transparency and customer due diligence standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US enforcement deal puts UBS\u2019s compliance record under renewed scrutiny, with regulators highlighting repeat failures and risks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[54432,13929,54433,32035,54330,1202,223,33312],"class_list":["post-111317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ubs","tag-125-million-fine","tag-anti-money-laundering","tag-bank-secrecy-act-violations","tag-financial-compliance","tag-fincen","tag-news","tag-ubs","tag-ubs-financial-services"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117032992347106107","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111317","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=111317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}