According to the financial regulator, Commerzbank violated its supervisory obligations to prevent money laundering. BaFin imposed fines totaling 1.45 million euros.
According to the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), Commerzbank has violated its supervisory obligations to prevent money laundering. The institute must therefore pay fines totaling 1.45 million euros.
The background is the integration of the online subsidiary Comdirect Bank, which was fully absorbed into the group in 2020. “As a result of inadequate monitoring, employees violated anti-money laundering obligations by not updating customer data on a timely or sufficient basis and by taking inadequate internal security measures,” said the supervisory authority.
In addition, due to the breach of supervisory duty, the enhanced due diligence requirements were inadequately applied in three cases.
Commerzbank: Problems resolved
A Commerzbank spokeswoman said that the necessary adjustment of processes and the updating of data would have been fully completed in 2022. As part of the integration of Comdirect Bank, requirements for verifying the legitimacy of new customers as well as processes and controls for updating customer data in the direct bank were reviewed. This would have resulted in rework.
The bank has always been in close contact with BaFin, said the spokeswoman. Of course, Commerzbank complied with the authorities’ requirements. According to BaFin, the fine notice has been legally binding since March 28th.
Banks play a key role in tracking illegal money transfers into the legal financial and economic circuit. Among other things, they must inform the supervisory authority in the event of noticeably large cash deposits and other suspicious cash flows.