At Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the financial services industry regulator in the UK, imposed fines totaling £7.7 million on UK units from Bank Trust Guarantee (GTB) “for serious weaknesses in its anti-money laundering (AML) system and controls between October 2014 and July 2019,” the watchdog said Tuesday in a statement.
The sanctions mark the second time lenders will face punitive action over AML controls, with a fine of £525,000 in August 2013 “for serious and systemic failings.”
The FCA noted that GTB does not have the obligation to track customer transactions and business transactions that meet the expected standards, adding that insiders and external sources have continuously pointed out these defects to GTB, which has not taken steps to address them.
Financial institutions stopped signing up new customers from early 2018, according to the FCA, the year the GTB agreed to more voluntary restrictions on its business, citing regulator concerns.
“‘GT Bank should have acted quickly to implement adequate AML controls after the fine in 2013 but failed. GT Bank did not create a plan that could overcome the weaknesses of AML, exposing and the wider market to the risk of financial crimes in the long term,” said Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of Market Enforcement and Supervision.
“‘Firms must protect themselves and those they deal with from the risks of financial crime, especially money laundering. The FCA is determined to ensure the market for financial services is safe, clean and reliable with strong systems and controls to prevent financial crime.
The document said “GT Bank has not disputed the FCA’s findings and has agreed to settle, meaning it has received a 30 per cent discount.”
The fine is expected to be in the region of £11 million if it is not reduced.
The watchdog, which regulates the actions of 50,000 companies in the country, expects functional AML controls to be installed by supervised companies to prevent threats from people and organizations that use financial services companies to pass checks aimed at preventing them from enjoying illegally obtained assets .
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Gbenga Alade, the Managing Director of GTBank UK, assured stakeholders and the general public that the necessary steps have been taken to address and resolve the identified gaps.
“As a responsible financial services institution committed to best practice, GTBank UK takes its AML obligations very seriously.
“We note with sincere regret the FCA’s findings of AML control gaps in our operations in the past and we are deeply sorry about this,” he said.
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