Australia’s financial crime agency has quietly received a report that HBSC bank breached anti-money laundering Act after it failed in reporting international money transfers. News has it that HSBC received a fine of SUS1.9 billion in 2012 following the discovery by US regulators that drug cartels laundered billions of dollars through its global network.
Essential points in the report are:
HSBC has a history of breaches in thousands
Usually, under Australian regulations, breaches of this kind result in $21 million fine per offence
Authority cannot give details on a specific investigation
This case of money laundering by HSBC, which was made known to Australian Regulators by the bank arm in Australia is currently the latest bank money laundering case after Westpac was involved in 23 million breaches last year and commonwealth settled by paying $700 million for 53,700 failures. In Australia, breaching anti-money laundering regulations attract $21 million fines for each offence.
A spokesman for HBSC would not show actual numbers of breaches, but it is clear that failures associated are in thousands, but lower than Westpac or CBA. A reporter for the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis centre (AUSTRAC) said there was no comment on definite investigations. Exposure to money laundering breaches by HSBC is recorded in the bank’s 2019 financial accounts that were published towards the end of last month.
HSBC has now initiated an anti-money laundering program aimed at addressing its record-keeping and reporting of inter-border transactions. The bank, like CBA and Westpac, is now faced with the task for identifying every specific transaction not previously reported to AUSTRAC as well as taking appropriate corrections.
