Halister News

(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong Monetary Authority has ordered Coutts & Co AG, Hong Kong Branch to pay a pecuniary penalty of HK$7 million for contravening five provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance, according to a release on HKMA’s website Tuesday.

• Investigation found that Coutts Hong Kong failed to establish and maintain effective procedures for determining whether its customers or their beneficial owners were politically exposed persons
  • Coutts Hong Kong had failed to identify PEPs despite relevant information being publicly available and to follow up promptly on PEP alerts received from a commercially available database to which Coutts Hong Kong subscribed
• Coutts Hong Kong has taken positive and intensive remedial measures to address the deficiencies identified by the HKMA and cooperated with the monetary authority during the probe
• “Banks are expected to have in place anti money- laundering/counter-terrorist financing systems and controls that are commensurate with the risks presented and the HKMA will take enforcement action where appropriate to reinforce this message,” Meena Datwani, Executive Director (Enforcement and AML) of the HKMA, said in the statement