News
Israeli Regulator Fines Israel Discount Bank Nearly $1 Million for AML Failings
By Larissa Bernardes
printIsrael's chief financial regulator ordered the country's third largest bank to pay nearly $1 million Monday over the institution's poor anti-money laundering controls. Bank of Israel said that, during late 2005 and early 2006, Israel Discount Bank had weak internal controls, including poor customer identification procedures and suspicious activity reporting. What's more, the bank overly relied on outsourcing its anti-money laundering (AML) compliance, the regulator said in a statement. The penalty against the Tel Aviv -based bank is a rarity for the Israeli regulator, according to Kenneth Rijock, a financial crime consultant with London-based consultancy World Check. "This is the...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
Egypt's decision to reopen the Gaza Strip's most important land-based port of entry will complicate international efforts to stem funding for designated terrorist group Hamas, say critics of the move.
Israeli banking authorities imposed a record $2.1 million fine for AML violations on Bank Hapoalim, Ltd., citing the bank's failure to report suspicious activity, collect or maintain beneficial ownership information and freeze accounts with incomplete customer identification data.
The Bank of Israel is set to fine two Israeli banks for AML problems, FinCEN and the SEC penalize a brokerage $50,000 and Japan introduces new sanctions against Iran, in this week's news roundup.
The U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted a Palestinian bank and television station Thursday for their alleged relationship with Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.
The United States will likely sanction a newly opened Gaza Strip-based bank said to have Hamas members on its board of directors, say former government officials.
Israel's Security Cabinet designated 35 groups linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban as terrorists. They are the first of many new sanctions aimed at global terrorist groups that focus their attacks on other countries. The designations bring Israel more in line with U.S. and European sanctions regimes.
A London-based bank has forced the closure of accounts for an Islamic charity it believes has ties to Hamas, a Palestinian organization sanctioned internationally for terrorism, the charity disclosed this week.
Israeli anti-money laundering regulations fail to address gaps in identifying beneficial owners and threats to non-bank financial institutions, a global watchdog group said Wednesday.
Israel Discount Bank said costs related to an anti-money laundering compliance settlement with the U.S. government have escalated to nearly $56 million, or more than twice the size of a regulatory penalty assessed against the institution in 2005.
Compliance costs tied to two civil money penalties totaling $20.5 million reached more than $30 million and could go higher if federal regulators determine the institution illegally allowed transactions linked to Iran, according to a third quarter filing by the bank.
The Fatah-run Palestinian government, which is vying with Hamas for the control of the divided Palestinian territories, is drafting measures to counter money laundering by its rival, but compliance experts say the effort is mere "window dressing."
While smaller banks received civil money penalties in 2006, the size of the fines relative to bank size increased.