FCA fines Standard Bank £7.6m for money laundering failures

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Standard Bank £7.64m for failings relating to its anti-money laundering (AML) policies and to procedures with corporate customers who are connected to 'politically exposed persons'.

The FCA said that the bank had failed to ensure that all aspects of its AML policies were applied appropriately and consistently to its corporate customers connected to 'politically exposed persons' (PEP) between 15 December 2007 and 20 July 2011. Standard Bank had business relationships with 5,339 corporate customers of which 282 were linked to one or more PEPs during the period.The FCA reviewed Standard Bank's policies and procedures and a sample of 48 corporate customer files, all of which had a connection with one or more PEPs. The results of this review highlighted serious weakne...