UBS and Citi under nine banks have occupied money laundering cases in Singapore with a fine of $ 21.5 million

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Singapore has taken banks and asset managers such as UBS, Citi and Julius Baer with his second largest collective punishment in relation to a money launch that exposes the clean reputation of the city state and threw a pall over the asset management sector.

Nine financial institutions received a collective punishment of $ 27.45 million ($ 21.5 million), the largest number since punishment in the 1MDB case, about what Singapore regulating authority described as “bad and inconsistent implementation” of control persons. US $ 2 billion money laundering scandal.

The case associated with online gaming in Asia led to the beliefs of 10 Chinese nationals and in the island fits of assets, including gold bars and luxury cars.

It threw a shadow SingaporeThe ambitions to be a leading asset management center and the challenge of opening foreign assets at the same time enforce strict rules for money laundering.

“Like other important international financial centers, Singapore is exposed to the risks of money laundering,” said Ho Hern Shin, deputy managing director for financial supervision at the Singapore monetary authority.

“MAS will work closely with financial institutions to promote (anti-money laundering) measures.

In its report, the regulatory authority said that it had “defects” to find out how financial institutions carried out money attempts for new customers, how they were dealt with the source of the assets of customers and how they were dealt with by their own systems as “suspicious”.

The Credit Suisse, which has been taken over by UBS since then, received the largest individual punishment at $ 5.8 million. UBS was hit with $ 2.6 million s $ 3 million and Citi.

The regulatory authority also appointed managers and relationship managers at United Overseas Bank and smaller institutions for problems, including a failure to determine the source of wealth of its customers.

The United Overseas Bank said that it (d) (d) (Ed) Mas’ recognizes results regarding the identified improvement areas.

“In the past two years, we have carried out immediate remedial measures to fix the internal review, including the inserting of our transaction monitoring and our customer Due Diligence processes,” it said.

Blue Ocean Invest, an asset manager, said that he had “recognized the results” and “implemented measures to improve internal guidelines and procedures”.

“We worked completely with the MAS throughout the inspection and a detailed renovation plan was carried out to combat the violations,” said a spokesman for Trident Trust.

Lgt, Julius Baer And UBS said they also recognized the results of the regulatory authority and had completely worked with the authorities during their investigation.

A Citi Singapore spokesman said that the bank had “strengthened our customers on board and surveillance processes and continued to work closely with the authorities to protect the integrity of the financial system and to improve the risk of financial crime”.

Data visualization by Haohsiang Ko