FILE PHOTO: HSBC brand is seen on a department financial institution within the monetary district in New York, U.S., August 7, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
LONDON (Reuters) – HSBC (HSBA.L) has reported itself to Australia’s monetary regulator for potential breaches of anti-money laundering guidelines, the financial institution disclosed in a regulatory submitting by its Australian subsidiary.
The breaches concerned small quantities of cross-border overseas foreign money transactions involving non-banking monetary establishments that the London-headquartered financial institution was unable to correctly report for technical causes, HSBC mentioned.
The 2019 annual report of HSBC’s Australian subsidiary mentioned it had flagged the potential breaches to AUSTRAC, a authorities company that combats cash laundering and monetary crime.
“…regulators and different our bodies could make findings that the financial institution has engaged in misconduct, together with breaches of regulation or conduct that falls under neighborhood requirements and expectations,” HSBC mentioned.
An HSBC spokeswoman in Hong Kong mentioned the financial institution wouldn’t remark additional on its engagement with regulators.
HSBC paid a $1.9 billion wonderful and entered right into a five-year deferred prosecution settlement with U.S. authorities in 2012 for failing to forestall Mexican drug cartels from laundering lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.
The financial institution has since invested billions of {dollars} into its inner controls, employed 1000’s of compliance workers and employed an impartial monitor on the request of regulators to verify its progress on enhancing its techniques to forestall extra breaches.
Reporting By Sumeet Chatterjee in Hong Kong and Lawrence White in London. Enhancing by Jane Merriman