ABN AMRO has been sanctioned by the US Federal Reserve Board, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Office of Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the State of Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation and the New York State Banking Department due to deficiencies in the US dollar clearing operations at its New York branch and violations of the OFAC regulations originating at its branch in Dubai.
As per the announced sanctions regulators imposed a sanction of a cease and desist order, including an aggregate civil penalty of USD 75 mln (approx. EUR 62.5 mln). In addition, ABN AMRO has agreed to make a voluntary endowment of USD 5 mln (approx. EUR 4 mln) to the Illinois Bank Examiners’ Education Foundation, bringing the total amount related to this sanction to USD 80 mln (approx. EUR 66.5 mln). Furthermore, the bank must continue to implement improvements in its oversight and compliance programs.
ABN AMRO recognises that serious mistakes were made and accepts the sanctions.
Rijkman Groenink, Chairman of the Managing Board of ABN AMRO, said: “As a global financial organisation, nothing short of the highest standards of compliance is acceptable. We regrettably recognise that, in the past, our compliance in certain areas did not meet this standard. The regulators were right to ask us to correct the deficiencies, and earlier this year we put into place an extensive Remedial Action Programme to address them. Further improving our compliance is the highest priority of the bank.”