The brokerage arm of the Swiss bank didn’t fix flaws identified in 2018, resulting in some 60,000 foreign currency wires valued at about $10 billion going unmonitored, regulators said.
- The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is ordering UBS Financial Services, a subsidiary of the Swiss banking giant, to pay a $125 million penalty “for willful violations” of the Bank Secrecy Act – the largest penalty the regulator has ever imposed against a broker-dealer connected to BSA violations, according to a Monday press release.
- Included in that penalty are fines also set to be paid to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission over anti-money laundering violations, supervision failures related to foreign wire transfers and the firm’s failure to timely file suspicious activity reports, regulators said.
- A UBS spokesperson said Monday the announcement “brings closure to this legacy matter. UBS has cooperated fully with its regulators and has made significant investments to remediate and strengthen its AML program in line with leading industry practices.”