MAS penalises Swiss-Asia Financial for serious AML failures

The imposed composition penalty is worth $2.5m.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has taken action against Swiss-Asia Financial Services (SAFS) for breaches of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements. 

MAS imposed a composition penalty of $2.5m on SAFS for the breaches of AML/CFT requirements. 

Additionally, SAFS' CEO, Olivier Pascal Mivelaz, and its COO, Steve Knabl, were reprimanded for failing to ensure compliance with MAS' AML/CFT requirements.

Between September 2015 and October 2018, SAFS experienced significant business growth but failed to implement adequate AML/CFT controls, leading to multiple breaches of MAS' requirements. 

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These breaches included:

• Failure to consider relevant risk factors in its enterprise-wide risk assessment.
• Failure to conduct customer due diligence (CDD) measures before establishing business relations.
• Neglecting to scrutinize third-party transactions in customers' accounts.
• Inadequate identification and assessment of higher money laundering or terrorism financing (ML/TF) risk customers.
• Failure to submit suspicious transaction reports despite knowledge of potential financial crime involvement.
• Lack of internal audit to monitor the effectiveness of AML/CFT controls.

Mivelaz and Knabl were reprimanded for their failure to ensure compliance with AML/CFT requirements. 

They approved inadequate risk assessments and did not ensure regular internal audits were conducted to assess AML/CFT controls. SAFS has taken necessary remedial actions to address the deficiencies identified by MAS.

Loo Siew Yee, assistant managing director at MAS, emphasised that financial institutions providing wealth management services must take measures to mitigate ML/TF risks. 

Boards and senior management are expected to establish adequate AML/CFT controls, oversee their implementation, and ensure compliance and internal audit functions are effective and aligned with business growth.