Commerzbank Fined £37.9m for Money Laundering Failures

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued its second-largest fine ever to Commerzbank London due to put anti-money laundering failures 2012 and 2017, which the regulator concluded had “created significant risk”. Although the FCA raised concerns three times during the period, the bank still failed to “take reasonable and effective steps to fix them.”

“Commerzbank London’s failings over several years created a significant risk that financial and other crime might be undetected,” said Mark Steward, the FCA’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight. “Firms should recognise that AML controls are vitally important to the integrity of the UK financial system.”

The bank agreed to resolve the dispute at an early stage, which led to a 30% reduction in the fine.

Danish Regulator Reports Danske Bank for Market Abuse, Launches AML Enquiry

Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) has reported the country’s largest lender, Danske Bank, for violating the prohibition on market manipulation. The regulator alleges that the bank facilitated “wash trades” (where the same entity both buys and sells securities) between 2016-19, as well as failing to properly monitor and report transactions. Danske’s chief compliance officer Philippe Vollot has admitted that the bank did not have “adequate market monitoring in place”. Last week, the FSA also announced that it would be carrying out a cross-sector AML inspection of transaction monitoring at Danske Bank.

An inspection report of Danske Bank published by the FSA in November 2019 found “significant weaknesses in its governance of IT security and risks.”

mBank Selects Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for Risk Management

mBank, Poland’s fourth largest banking group based on assets, has chosen Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for Risk Management as its risk software. The mobile digital bank operates across three markets in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The bank will specifically use the Wolters Kluwer’s solution for Asset and Liability Management (ALM) as well as Market Risk and profitability (Funds Transfer Pricing).

Shield Joins Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner Program

Specialist RegTech provider Shield has been selected by Microsoft to join its One Commercial Partner (OCP) program, which provides best-of-breed Cloud-based solutions. The partnership means the Shield platform is now available on Microsoft’s App Source and Azure Marketplace.

“With increased remote working and ongoing disruption to many business operations because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, many firms are looking at their options for maintaining regulatory compliance and surveillance during these challenging times,” says Eran Noam, Global VP of Sales and Marketing at Shield. “As an early supporter of the Microsoft platform in the RegTech sphere, Shield is perfectly placed to help regulated firms meet these needs, as they switch to Microsoft Teams as a key part of their journey towards cloud services.”

ONE Appointed by Maitland to Provide Compliance Technology

ONE regulatory has been appointed by global advisory and family offices firm Maitland to implement R-ONE, a cloud-based compliance technology and workflow tool. ONE group provides fund management solutions including third-party Management Company, Regulatory & Compliance Advisory, Corporate Secretary and Governance Technology solutions to asset, wealth and fund managers through offices in Luxembourg, London and Zurich.

MirrorWeb Joins Microsoft Scale-up Programme

UK-based web archiving and monitoring solutions provider MirrorWeb has been selected to join the Microsoft ScaleUp programme, an initiative that gives a small number of high-growth companies access to Microsoft’s sales, marketing and technical support. To be successful, companies must be start-ups or growth enterprises at the forefront of emerging technologies, and with the potential to tap into newer markets. Fewer than 2% of applications to the program currently succeed.MirrorWeb helps marketing and compliance professionals meet regulatory requirements by capturing immutable records of their digital content and archiving their web and social media channels. Clients include Liontrust Asset Management, Zurich Insurance Group, Tesco Bank, Bank of England and the Treasury.

Wolters Kluwer Updates OneSumX, Signs ING in China

Wolters Kluwer’s Finance, Risk & Reporting (FRR) business has released an update for its OneSumX for Regulatory Reporting solution to allow clients to meet the Second-Generation People’s Bank of China Enterprise Credit Reference Submission, an update to the country’s credit reference system first launched in January 2020, which makes a broad range of changes to reporting and information collection procedures for personal and enterprise credit data. ING’s China business has chosen OneSumX for Regulatory Reporting to meet the new requirements.

Kyckr to Raise A$10m Through Share Placement

Australian digital verification specialist Kyckr has confirmed plans to raise a further A$10 million (before costs) via a new share placement to institutional and sophisticated investors, woith new shares issued at $0.08 per share. Kyckr will also conduct a Share Purchase Plan (SPP) for an additional A$2m, to allow eligible existing shareholders an opportunity to participate in the raising at the same price. The funds will be used to expand international sales growth. Kyckr recently launched its latest ‘Company Watch’ product, an automated online monitoring service for enterprises, and announced expanded contracts with Commerzbank and Citigroup.

Singapore Introduces ‘Fairness Metrics’ for AI Adoption

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced today that the first phase of its Veritas initiative – a framework for financial institutions to promote the responsible adoption of Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (AIDA) – will commence with the development of fairness metrics in credit risk scoring and customer marketing. The 25-member consortium will publish a white paper documenting the metrics and release an open-source code to enable financial institutions to adopt the fairness metrics in these two areas by the end of 2020.

EU Issues Warning to Member States Over 5AML

More than half of the EU’s member states have failed to fully implement the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, according to the European Commission (EC). The authority has sent letters of formal notices to 17 countries – including Cyprus, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain – which it says missed the official implementation deadline of 10 January, 2020. The EC also criticised Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Poland for only partial implementation, and warned Luxembourg over its choice to allow firms “unlimited deductability of interest” from their tax bills.

“The Commission regrets that the Member States in question have failed to transpose the Directive in a timely manner and encourages them all to do so urgently, bearing in mind the importance of these rules for the EU’s collective interest,” said the EC in a statement.