DECEMBER 22, 2017
Merrill Lynch has agreed to enter into a cease-and-desist order and pay a fine totaling $26 million after failing to identify suspicious money-transfer activities in customer accounts nationwide.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority each fined the firm $13 million as a result of the b-d’s alleged failures to detect and report suspicious banking activity in billions of dollars of transactions.
Merrill Lynch made the decision to exclude transactions of more than $22 billion in retirement and managed accounts and accounts involving securities-based loans from its AML monitoring system, the SEC alleged in its order. The accounts experienced “significant” activity in 2.5 million transactions in 2013 alone, the SEC said.
