Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, United Kingdom,
has been fined £525,000 ($815,000) by the country’s markets regulator
for failing to have controls in place to prevent money laundering.
Bloomberg said the lender failed to
document risks posed by higher-risk customers when it set up a London
office in 2008, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said.
“Banks are at the front line in ensuring
the proceeds of crime do not enter the United Kingdom financial
system,” Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement at the FCA, said in
the statement. “GT Bank’s failures were serious and systemic and
resulted in an unacceptable risk of handling the proceeds of crime.”
Guaranty Trust Bank opened a United
Kingdom office in 2008 offering retail and wholesale banking to private
and corporate clients, according to the regulator.
“We have fully co-operated with the FCA
in its investigation and we have accepted the findings,” Ade Adebiyi,
managing director of the United Kingdom unit, said in an e-mailed
statement. “The FCA found no evidence that GTB UK did in fact handle any
proceeds of crime.” The bank received the FCA’s standard 30 per cent
discount for settling early.
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