A US financial industry watchdog fined Credit Suisse $16.5 million for lax oversight to prevent money laundering, the agency announced Monday. The big Swiss bank was faulted for a number of omissions and failures in its system for identifying transactions that may be linked to illegal activity, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said. FINRA found that for two years, from January 2011 through 2013, Credit Suisse employees were not reporting suspicious activity and trades as they were required to do.
Investigators from the independent organisation cited a hedge fund client whose transactions had traits typical of fraud, such as deposit, quick selling and then the wiring of the proceeds. "However no one at the firm reviewed the activity in the account for anti-money laundering purposes," FINRA said. In addition, from 2011 through 2015 Credit Suisse failed to adequately implement an automated surveillance system. The firm self-identified some of the problems, but "initially failed to devote adequate resources" to address the problem and "some of the deficiencies remain unresolved today," FINRA said. Credit Suisse signed an enforcement settlement agreeing to implement and fund a program to address the failures by September 1, 2017.
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