Is Compliance Optional? What happens if a regulated body doesn’t fully comply?
In today’s financial landscape, compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations is not merely a regulatory obligation but a strategic imperative. Failure to adhere to these standards exposes organizations to substantial legal penalties, tarnishes reputations, and undermines stakeholder trust. Recent high-profile cases underscore the severe consequences of non-compliance.
Various financial institutions were fined the total of $263,252,003 in the first half of 2024 alone. Here are some notable fines and legal actions taken against the AML regulations violators in the last few years:
Deutsche Bank – €23.05 million fine (March 2025)
Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) fined Deutsche Bank €23.05 million for multiple regulatory breaches. The fine comprised three parts: €14.8 million for violations related to the sale of currency derivatives in Spain €4.6 million for failing to record telephone conversations during investment advice at its Postbank branch €3.65 million for non-compliance with account switching service requirements at Postbank The largest portion (€14.8 million) was due to Deutsche Bank’s slow response in investigating and remedying shortcomings related to the sale of currency derivatives in Spain. This followed a €10 million fine imposed by the Spanish National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) in February 2025 for mis-selling complex foreign exchange derivatives to Spanish clients between 2018 and 2021.
Starling Bank – £28.96 million fine (October 2024)
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Starling Bank £28.96 million for weak financial sanctions screening and breaching an agreement to avoid high-risk accounts. Despite rapid growth, Starling’s financial crime controls lagged, with over 54,000 high-risk accounts opened from 2021 to 2023. An internal review in January 2023 revealed that since 2017, Starling’s automated screening system had only been screening customers against a fraction of the full sanctions list.
MGM Grand & The Cosmopolitan – $7.45 million settlement (2024)
These casinos settled for $7.45 million after failing to report suspicious transactions tied to an illegal sports betting scheme.
Unnmaed US bank – $135.6 million in penalties (2024)
The Federal Reserve and the OCC assessed penalties of $60.6 million and $75 million, respectively, for the bank’s violations of prior orders related to banking as a service (BaaS) issues.
TD Bank – C$9.2 million fine (2024)
Canada’s FINTRAC fined TD Bank a record C$9.2 million (approximately $6.7 million USD) for AML non-compliance after a 2023 review found failures in monitoring high-risk accounts.
Multiple enforcement actions by OFAC – Over $550 million in settlements (2023)
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) closed eight enforcement actions in 2023, targeting companies, financial institutions, and individuals in the United States and abroad.
NatWest – £264.8 million fine (2021)
NatWest was fined £264.8 million after being convicted of three anti-money laundering (AML) offences. The FCA found that the bank did not adequately monitor for terrorist financing and money laundering until 2014 and failed to properly assess new risks after 2016.
Payoneer – $1.4 million fine (2021)
Payoneer was fined over $1.4 million for multiple failures in its fuzzy matching screening controls.
Kraken – $300,000 fine (2022)
Crypto service provider Kraken was fined over $300,000 for failing to screen customer IP addresses correctly during onboarding.
Swedbank – $3.4 million fine (2023)
Swedbank was fined over $3.4 million for not acting on location data that suggested transactions were connected to sanctions-listed Crimea.
Standard Chartered Bank – £20.47 million fine (April 2020)
The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) imposed two separate penalties totaling £20.47 million on Standard Chartered Bank for breaching sanctions regulations4. The case involved: Loans made to Denizbank, which was majority-owned by Sberbank, a sanctioned Russian bank SCB’s failure to ensure compliance with EU sanctions regulations The original fine of £31.5 million was reduced to £20.47 million following a ministerial review instigated by SCB. The bank received a 30% reduction for disclosing the suspected breaches, conducting an internal investigation, and cooperating with OFSI’s investigation.
Standard Chartered Bank – £102.2 million fine (April 2019)
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Standard Chartered Bank £102,163,200 for Anti-Money Laundering (AML) breaches in two higher-risk areas of its business: its UK Wholesale Bank Correspondent Banking business and its branches in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)3. The FCA found: Serious and sustained shortcomings in SCB’s AML controls relating to customer due diligence and ongoing monitoring Failures to establish and maintain risk-sensitive policies and procedures Failures to ensure its UAE branches applied UK equivalent AML and counter-terrorist financing controls SCB did not dispute the FCA’s findings and qualified for a 30% discount. Without this discount, the fine would have been £145,947,500
How Fincom Enhances AML Compliance
Fincom offers advanced solutions to streamline and enhance the sanctions screening process: Comprehensive Screening Across Payment Rails: Fincom’s AML Sanctions Screening solution supports various payment methods, including Wires, SWIFT, RTP, FedNow, and ACH, accommodating all compliance requirements.
Perpetual KYC (pKYC): Fincom provides fully automated ongoing screening, continuously scanning the entire client database against the latest versions of sanction and watch lists, such as OFAC and others, ensuring up-to-date compliance.
Built-in Alert Suppression: To reduce false positives, Fincom’s system incorporates automated alert suppression, remembering past approvals and enabling auto-clearance of previously approved entries while continuously monitoring changes in both entity and sanction list data.
Automated Sanctions Lists Updates: The system automatically updates sanction lists daily, either refreshing the entire dataset or applying only the changes. This ensures that the screening process always uses the most current information, helping financial institutions remain compliant with the latest regulatory requirements.
Multilingual Sanctions Screening: Given the global nature of sanctions enforcement, screening across multiple languages is essential. Names can appear in various transliterations, making it difficult to identify sanctioned individuals across different scripts. Fincom’s Phonetic-Linguistic Engine ensures accurate name-matching across 44 languages in original scripts, overcoming spelling variations, transliterations, and multilingual complexities to improve screening accuracy.
Audit Trail & Reports: Fincom maintains detailed reports, including screening results and analysts’ decision-making processes, which are logged and available for internal compliance auditing and inspections.
Case Management System: Featuring intuitive dashboards and clear task assignments, Fincom’s case management system simplifies the management of alerted cases, notifications, and teams, with detailed reports and search tools.
By implementing Fincom’s comprehensive sanctions screening solutions, organizations can enhance their compliance efforts, reduce operational costs, and effectively mitigate the risks associated with financial crimes.
