Citibank Taiwan, DBS Bank Taiwan hit for AML failings
Kao Shih-ching, 13 May 2021
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) NT$10 million (US$357,194) and DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) NT$6 million for breaches of the nation’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.
The NT$10 million fine is the highest penalty that it has imposed on a domestic bank, the commission said.
Citibank Taiwan failed to set up a sound mechanism for evaluating clients’ risk of money laundering and for detecting suspicious transactions, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Huang Kuang-hsi (黃光熙) told a news conference in New Taipei City
The bank based its AML policies on those of its US-based parent company, Citigroup Inc, but the policies ignored transaction types specific to Taiwan that are suspected to be used for money laundering, Huang added.
As criminals in Taiwan mainly move money from Taiwan to China, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asian countries, Citibank Taiwan should have highlighted these countries in its system, but it had not highlighted them because its parent company had not, Huang said.
Many of the bank’s corporate clients were one-person overseas companies that shared the same billing address and contact number, which was questionable, the commission said, adding that they might have been tax reduction arrangements for people related to each other
