NEW YORK—The total value of fines assessed banks and financial services firms across the globe for financial crime violations declined in the first half of this year, but experts are saying it isn’t because regulators are going easy on wrongdoers, according to a new report.
According to data from compliance firm Fenergo, regulators worldwide issued 97 financial crime-related fines in the first half of the year, bringing the total value of fines to $189 million, down 88% over 2022, City A.M. reported.
In the same period last year regulators collected more than $1.5 billion in fines, significantly below the global high in 2020, when a total of $10 billion in such fines were assessed, City A.M. said.
Fines tend to tick up in the second half of the year as firms attempt to settle their balance sheets ahead of annual reports, City A.M. stated.
Rory Doyle, head of financial crime policy at Fenergo, said the pandemic investigations backlog might have contributed to the downward trend while firms are also pursuing a more “rigorous compliance posture,” City A.M. noted.
Wells Fargo Again Leads the Way
While the majority of the fines were issued by U.S. regulators, U.K. agencies issued $14.2 million in fines in the first half of this year thanks to AML fines for Al Rayan and Guaranty Trust Bank, up from $10.6 million last year, City A.M. said.
Large fines to individual institutions made up the bulk of the total with Wells Fargo facing the largest fine, worth $97.8 million for failures on sanctions oversight, City A.M. noted.
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