Renee Bonorchis
DEUTSCHE Bank was fined R10 million by South Africa’s banking regulator for failure to comply with rules covering the detection of property linked to terrorism and other crimes.
The SA Reserve Bank, which also acts as the country’s bank supervisor, cited “deficiencies” in how Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank identified and verified customer details, according to a statement on the SA Reserve Bank’s website on Friday.
Capitec Bank, based in Stellenbosch near Cape Town, was fined R5m for not reporting cash transactions above R24 999, in keeping with the country’s Financial Intelligence Centre Act (Fica), the Reserve Bank said.
“The administrative sanctions are not an indication that Deutsche Bank or Capitec have in any way facilitated transactions involving money laundering and the financing of terrorism,” the Reserve Bank said.
Deutsche Bank said it acknowledged the inconsistencies and had “co-operated fully in re-mediating the identified shortcomings within agreed time frames”.
Capitec said its compliance department detected the failure to comply with cash threshold requirements, caused by “an oversight”, and reported it to the Reserve Bank. “We support the objectives of Fica and in no way facilitated any form of money laundering,” chief executive Gerrie Fourie said.
South Africa’s Reserve Bank last year fined the country’s four largest lenders a total of R125m after finding deficiencies in their controls to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
The penalties for FirstRand, Nedbank and Barclays’ South African unit were R30m, R25m and R10m respectively. The biggest penalty of R60m was imposed on Standard Bank. – Bloomberg