Westpac, One Of Australia's Largest Banks, Hit With Record $920 Million Penalty Over Money Laundering Scandal

The corporate introduced Thursday that it has agreed to the 1.three billion Australian greenback ($920 million) superb with AUSTRAC, a regulator in Australia that fights monetary crime. Westpac additionally admitted as a part of that deal that it broke anti-money laundering and terrorism financing legal guidelines more than 23 million times.

“I want to apologise sincerely for the financial institution’s failings,” CEO Peter King stated in an announcement. “We’re dedicated to fixing these points to make sure that these errors don’t occur once more. This has been my primary precedence.”

If the superb is authorized by an Australian court docket, it might be the biggest company penalty within the nation’s historical past. A 700 million Australian dollar ($493 million) superb was levied on the Commonwealth Financial institution of Australia in 2018 after that financial institution admitted it failed to look at legal guidelines to forestall cash laundering and financing of terrorism.

Westpac shares slumped Thursday in Sydney, and had been final buying and selling down about 1%.

Australian regulators pursued authorized motion towards Westpac almost a yr in the past after they stated the financial institution did not report tens of millions of directions for monetary transfers out and in of Australia.

The regulatory watchdog stated on the time that Westpac uncared for to do its due diligence on transactions to the Philippines and different components of Southeast Asia “which have recognized monetary indicators referring to potential little one exploitation.”

King said the corporate has made adjustments to the way it displays transactions, and has employed tons of of individuals liable for looking for monetary crime. The financial institution additionally created an govt place who’s immediately liable for bettering its potential to handle monetary crimes.

The allegations rocked the financial institution and led to the resignation of former CEO Brian Hartzer final November.

The superb additionally considerably exceeds what Westpac put aside as cost for the scandal. In its announcement Thursday, the financial institution said it had earlier estimated a potential penalty of 900 million Australian {dollars} ($634 million).

The penalty displays the “severe and systemic nature” of Westpac’s non-compliance, AUSTRAC stated in an announcement Thursday.

“Now we have been, and can proceed to work collaboratively with Westpac and all companies we regulate to assist them to satisfy their compliance and reporting obligations to make sure this does not occur once more sooner or later,” stated AUSTRAC chief govt Nicole Rose.

— Angus Watson contributed to this report.

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