The Prudential Authority (PA) has clamped down on Absa after the lender failed among others to do due diligence of some of its politically exposed clients linked with state-owned enterprises.
The regulator fined the bank R10m for falling foul of the provisions of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC).
This is after the authority found that the lender did not conduct due customer “due diligence on four of its foreign prominent public official client files and two of its politically exposed persons in respect of state-owned enterprises”.
“The PA confirms that Absa cooperated with the PA and has undertaken the necessary remedial action to address the identified compliance deficiencies and control weaknesses,” the PA said.
The regulator has been increasingly clamping down on wayward behaviour as it looks to get SA removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list.
The PA in January imposed administrative sanctions on Standard Bank for failure to comply with certain provisions of the FIC Act. These consisted of six cautions not to repeat the conduct which led to the non-compliance and a financial penalty totalling R13m.
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