A $186 million fine against Deutsche Bank AG for failing to comply with eight-year-old sanctions related to anti-money laundering violations was announced Wednesday by the Federal Reserve.
The Fed said the fine, issued under a consent order, was one of two actions taken against the New York branch of the Frankfurt, Germany bank. The other was a written agreement addressing other “general deficiencies” relating to the bank’s governance, risk management, and controls.
In a release, the Fed said the fine was based on unsafe and unsound practices and violations of its 2015 and 2017 consent orders with the bank relating to sanctions compliance and anti-money laundering controls. Those orders also carried with them civil money penalties (CMPs) of $58 million and $41 million, respectively.
More specifically, in this latest order, the Fed said it found that Deutsche Bank made “insufficient remedial progress” under its earlier orders and that the bank had deficient anti-money laundering internal controls and governance processes relating to its prior relationship with the Estonian branch of Danske Bank.
The latest consent order requires Deutsche Bank to prioritize completion of several critical requirements of the Fed’s prior orders, the agency said. Those include: improvements in systems and data, implementation of a customer due diligence program, and establishment of a framework for transaction monitoring. The bank also must complete a compliance review from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) that is satisfactory to the Fed.