FCA Fines HSBC £63.9 Mln For Deficient Transaction Monitoring Controls

(RTTNews) - The Financial Conduct Authority or FCA Friday said it has fined Asia-focused British lender HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBC, HSBA.L) about 63.95 million pounds for failings in its anti-money laundering processes.

The financial regulator said that HSBC used automated processes to monitor hundreds of millions of transactions a month to identify possible financial crime.

However, the FCA found that three key parts of the bank's transaction monitoring systems showed serious weaknesses over a period of eight years from March 31, 2010 to March 31, 2018.

HSBC has undertaken a large-scale remediation programme into its anti-money laundering processes, which was supervised by the FCA.

Mark Steward, Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA, said, "HSBC's transaction monitoring systems were not effective for a prolonged period despite the issue being highlighted on numerous occasions. These failings are unacceptable and exposed the bank and community to avoidable risks, especially as the remediation took such a long time. HSBC continued their remediation to address these weaknesses after the relevant period."