Penalties imposed on two financial institutions

The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Central Bank announced it has imposed penalties on two financial institutions amounting to Rs.4.0 million during the first quarter for not complying with anti-money laundering laws.

FIU, as the regulator for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in the country, had imposed the penalties for not complying with the provisions of the Financial Transactions Reporting Act, No. 06 of 2006 (FTRA).

Accordingly Rs.1 million penalty was imposed on Kanrich Finance Ltd. and Rs.3 million penalty on Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC.

“Penalties were imposed mainly on the violations of Financial Institutions (Customer Due Diligence) Rules, No. 1 of 2016 in relation to the United Nations sanctions screening, customer identification and verification, Suspicious Transactions Reporting and implementation of proper risk controls and mitigation measures,” a Central Bank statement said.