Wells Fargo must pay a $68 million penalty to the U.S. Federal Reserve and an additional $30 million to the Treasury Department for inadvertently allowing an unidentified European bank to conduct $532 million in transactions tied to blacklisted parties and nations from 2010 to 2015. The San Francisco-based lender inherited ties with the European bank, which officials identified only as "Bank A," by acquiring Wachovia, a financial holding company in North Carolina, in 2008. Using "Eximbills," a software originally hosted by Wachovia, Bank A completed 124 transactions that breached sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Syria during the years in question....
Poor anti-money laundering controls on affiliates and problematic oversight allowed a global bank to process tens of trillions of dollars with little to no compliance checks, according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
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