(Toronto) Canada’s financial intelligence agency imposes a $1.3 million penalty on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) for failing to comply with anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing measures.
This sanction is the second that the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC) has announced this week, after the fine of 7.4 million imposed on the Royal Bank of Canada, made public on Tuesday.
FINTRAC said Thursday that it imposed the sanction because CIBC failed to submit a suspicious transaction report when there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the transactions were related to money laundering or terrorist activity, and because it failed to report information relating to large money transfers from outside Canada.
The agency attempts to identify funds linked to illicit activities by electronically sifting through millions of records provided each year by banks, insurance companies, money services companies and others.
FINTRAC says it found one case where CIBC failed to file a suspicious transaction report despite knowing the client had been arrested and charged with criminal offences, while the agency’s review also revealed more than a thousand cases, out of a sample of 20,000, where information relating to money transfers was incomplete.
A CIBC spokesperson, Tom Wallis, responded, saying the administrative issues relate to a relatively small number of transactions and that the bank will continue to identify, investigate and do its part to deter and detect financial crimes. .
