Each and every one of the participating financial institutions (FIs) has consented to the fines imposed by the Singaporean regulator. Following reports of discrepancies in Wirecard’s financial statements and the participation of Singapore-based people and organizations in the case, MAS said that the breaches were discovered during its checks of the four corporations.
When interacting with people connected to Wirecard AG or its affiliated parties in Singapore, each firm was determined to have, in some manner, “inadequate” AML or CFT procedures in place. The stunning revelation that €1.9 billion that was’missing’ from its accounts never existed in the first place came from the German-based payments processor in 2020. Two former workers of Wirecard Asia Holdings were sentenced to jail earlier this week in Singapore, marking the first criminal convictions associated with the Wirecard scandal in history.
Although the recently discovered violations by the four organizations were significant, the MAS said in an official statement that it “did not find wilful misconduct by any staff of these FIs.” The greatest fine, S$2.6 million, was imposed on DBS Bank for a number of violations between July 2015 and February 2020. The bank didn’t:
keep client due diligence (CDD) information current
Rate the danger of terrorist funding and money laundering for customers.
Determine the wealth’s source for higher-risk clients
adequately research the circumstances surrounding and motivations behind abnormally big transactions.
OCBC was fined S$600,000 by the regulator in the meanwhile for failing to investigate transactions whose purposes were inconsistent with its understanding of the client or company.
The third-largest fine was imposed on Citibank, which must pay back S$400,000 for failing to investigate abnormally large transactions that much surpassed one customer’s prior transactions. Additionally, it did not look into a payment made to a person that was “allegedly involved in fraud”.
Swiss Life (Singapore) received the lowest penalty of the four, amounting to S$200,000, for failing to adequately understand the reasons behind the complex ownership and control structure of the higher-risk customer and failing to adequately corroborate the beneficial owner’s source of wealth.