Money Laundering

(asked on 30th October 2020) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment he has made of the potential merits of reviewing banks' compliance with money laundering regulations.


Answered by
John Glen Portrait
John Glen
Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
This question was answered on 9th November 2020

The UK’s Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLRs), set out the high-level requirements on banks to combat money laundering. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorist Financing (AML/CTF) supervisor for over 20,000 financial services firms in the UK and is committed to ensuring the MLRs are fully adhered to and will not hesitate to take action where they are not.

The FCA actively investigates AML breaches in the financial sector and in recent years this has resulted in fining Commerzbank in 2020, Standard Chartered Bank £102.2 million in April 2019, Barclays over £72m in 2015 and Deutsche Bank £163m in 2017 for AML failings. The Deutsche Bank fine is the largest fine for an AML breach ever imposed by the FCA or the Financial Services Authority. The FCA also makes full use of other powers available to it under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

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