Federal watchdogs have fined UBS Financial Services a total of $153 million, alleging the company failed to adhere to anti-money-laundering requirements and other compliance programs.
The Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, on Monday assessed a $125 million civil money penalty against UBS.
The agency said UBS willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act, which essentially deputizes banks to act as the first line of defense against money laundering. FinCEN noted that the fine marks the largest penalty ever imposed against a broker-dealer for BSA violations to date.
Monday's action marks FinCEN's second enforcement action against UBS. The agency in December 2018 assessed a civil money penalty of $14.5 million, after finding in part that UBS failed to adequately monitor foreign-currency wires due to weaknesses in its automated monitoring system.
"Despite UBSFS assuring FinCEN that it would soon remediate the underlying issues, UBSFS did not do so and subsequently failed to appropriately monitor over 50,000 foreign currency wires with an aggregate value of more than $10 billion," the agency said.
The agency also alleged that UBS failed to comply with its obligations to perform appropriate customer due diligence, particularly in connection with its provision of services to high-risk customers with ties to Russia and Latin America.
UBS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. FinCEN said that as part of its resolution, UBS admitted it willfully violated the BSA, including failing to implement and maintain an anti-money-laundering program and to file suspicious-activity reports.
Separately, FINRA on Monday fined UBS Financial Services $20 million for anti-money-laundering violations, similarly finding that the company again failed to establish and implement a compliance program reasonably expected to detect and cause the reporting of suspicious transactions involving foreign-currency wires.
And the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered UBS to pay $8 million, settling charges that the company failed to diligently supervise the configuration and operation of its anti-money-laundering transaction monitoring systems for wire transfers denominated in foreign currencies.
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