Global financial regulators levied US$189.1 million worth of fines in H1 2023 – an 88% drop compared to H1 2022.
According to Fenergo, global regulators levied 97 fines in H1 2023 for non-compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations, including know your customer (KYC) and client due diligence (CDD), as well as sanctions violations.
The US, despite making up 10% of the violations in H1 2023, paid 83% (US$157.3m) of the global total. Regulators collected US$1.6 billion over the same period in 2022.
Rory Doyle, head of financial crime policy at Fenergo, said both H1 2022 and H1 2023 saw several large individual fines that constituted the bulk of the global fines total.
“Even when removing these individual large fines, there is a decreasing trend in global fines issued in the first half of the year for financial crime regulatory violations. But banks should not assume that regulators are taking their feet off the accelerator. Especially in the US, regulators are demonstrating a focus on scrutinising larger institutions for serious violations, instead of levying enforcement actions on many organizations, no matter the violation.”
While the second half of the year usually sees an uptick in enforcement actions, Fenergo said, its findings fit a multi-year trend of decreasing fines, which peaked in 2020 at more than US$10 billion.
Already since July, there has been at least US$2.65 billion in enforcement and settlement actions levied by regulators in China, Cyprus, the US, UK, Dubai and Belgium, including a US$186 million settlement with Deutsche Bank for AML regulatory violations to US regulators.
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