Latvia to toughen penalties for banks violating anti-money laundering rules
Xinhua, April 21, 2016 Adjust font size:
Penalties for banks violating anti-money laundering regulations will soon become tougher in Latvia under draft amendments to the Credit Institutions Law, approved Wednesday by the parliament budget and finance (taxation) committee.
It has also been proposed paying the fines that will be charged on banks into the Economic Development Fund and using them to finance the government's support program for families buying their first homes.
In line with the draft amendments to the Credit Institutions Law, the banks will face fines of up to 10 percent of their annual turnover for a failure to comply with anti-money laundering legislation.
The maximum fine for individuals who violate the anti-money laundering laws while acting on behalf of a bank will be 5 million euros (about 5.7 million U.S. dollars), the lawmakers decided.
The Latvian banking regulator, the Financial and Capital Market Commission, has recently penalized several banks for not preventing illegal transactions.
The Ukrainian-controlled PrivatBank has been fined with two million euros, a fine of 1.1 million euros has been slapped on Baltic International Bank, and Trasta Komercbanka has even lost its license. (1 euro = 1.14 U.S. dollars) Enditem