New York regulators Friday issued a $215 million fine against China's third-largest bank for intentionally violating the state's rules against financial crime, possibly marking the largest U.S. penalty ever assessed against a Chinese lender accused of compliance misconduct. In a 28-page consent order, the New York State Department of Financial Services, or DFS, accused senior managers of Agricultural Bank of China's branch in Manhattan of disregarding the regulator's prior instruction to upgrade its transaction-screening systems before expanding its U.S. dollar clearing operations, which subsequently "skyrocketed" from $26 billion in the first seven months of 2014 to $72 billion from January...
Chinese financial institutions feature prominently among more than a hundred banks recently revealed to have knowingly or unknowingly processed billions of dollars-worth of illicit payments originating from Russia.
The U.S. Federal Reserve on Thursday ordered the New York branch of South Korea's NongHyup Bank to upgrade its anti-money laundering, customer due-diligence and suspicious activity monitoring programs.
New York regulators Friday fined an Asian bank $180 million for violating the state's anti-money laundering and recordkeeping laws and ordered the lender to appoint an independent monitor and a compliance consultant.