The Singapore government imposes penalties for breaches of the requirements in connection with the case of Wirecard.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has imposed S$3.8 million ($2.83 million) of total penalties to DBS, Citibank, OCBC and Swiss Life (SLSG). The penalties imposed as «MAS expects the financial institutions to step up their controls against facilitating illicit financial flows,» said Ho Hern Shin, Deputy Managing Director (Financial Supervision) in a statement on 21 June 2023.
Among those parties, DBS received the highest amount of penalty for S$2.6 million ($1.94 million). Meanwhile, Citibank is fined S$ 400,000 for the breaches between September 2019 and June 2020 relating to accounts maintained by two corporate customers.
«The case dates back to before June 2020 and since then we have taken steps to strengthen our know your customer (KYC) process,» Citi Singapore's spokesperson told finews.asia.
Furthermore, OCBC gets a S$600,000 penalty for breaches between June 2015 and January 2016 related to accounts of one corporate customer. Insurer Swiss Life gets a S$200,000 penalty for breaches in May 2017 relating to an investment-linked life insurance policy.
Several Fails
DBS was found for breaches between July 2015 to February 2020 relating to accounts maintained by 11 corporate customers linked to Wirecard, a German supplier of electronic payment and risk management services. The MAS said DBS had failed to maintain relevant and up-to-date customer due diligence (CDD) information relating to customers’ beneficial ownership.
The Singapore-based bank also failed to update customers’ money laundering or terrorism financing risk ratings. DBS had also failed to adequately establish the source of wealth of higher-risk customers and their beneficial owners. Furthermore, they had failed to inquire about the background and purpose of unusually large transactions that were not consistent.
