…it could have avoided paying a £108M fine.
Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Santander UK (the UK subsidiary of one of the largest Spanish banks – Santander) for “serious and persistent” failures to comply with anti-money laundering regulations.
According to FCA, Santander UK’s AML systems are inefficient, which affected over 560,000 business accounts between the years 2012 and 2017.
The original fine was £153,990,400 – the highest of AML-related penalties in 2022. However, the bank received a 30% discount for not disputing FCA’s findings, and now must pay ‘only’ £107,793,300.
According to the FCA, one of the AML violations was the bank’s failure to “promptly deal with ‘red flags’ associated with suspicious activity, such as automated monitoring alerts.”
Fincom’s Ongoing Sanctions Monitoring is a micro-service that helps banks, or any other entity adhere to AML regulations. The micro-service can be integrated in any existing AML system, be it a modern cloud-based platform or a legacy system.
The ongoing sanction monitoring is performed automatically on a daily basis, screening the entire client database against the latest version of updated Sanctions lists. Fincom’s system automatically uploads sanction lists and other internal lists, updating any changes of the corresponding entries, as well as additions to and removals from the lists. Once the entries are updated, the Ongoing Sanction Monitoring micro-service automatically screens the updated customer base against the updates.
The service is performed at nighttime and does not interrupt daily operations and workflow.
Fincom’s AML SUITE automation for Ongoing Monitoring uses both the Persistence mechanism and the automatic Lists Synchronization to support monitoring of all type of lists, making sure to stop any unauthorized transactions.
—
About Fincom
FINCOM develops and deploys Streamlined Data Search Solutions for AML/Sanction Screening, Data Mapping, Entity Resolution, and Homeland Security applications. The most advanced, award winning platform for banking, regulatory, e-commerce and other applications, bringing innovation, efficiency, and security to financial institutions around the globe.
