The integration of Comdirect into the Commerzbank Group revealed deficiencies in the online subsidiary’s money laundering prevention. This costs Commerzbank money.
Commerzbank has to pay millions in fines due to deficiencies in money laundering prevention. The financial regulator Bafin imposed fines totaling 1.45 million euros. The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) announced that Commerzbank AG and the online subsidiary Comdirect Bank, which was fully taken over in 2020, had violated their supervisory obligations.
“As a result of inadequate monitoring, employees have violated anti-money laundering obligations by not updating customer data on time or sufficiently and by taking inadequate internal security measures.” In addition, due to the breach of supervisory duty, the enhanced due diligence requirements were inadequately applied in three cases.
According to a Commerzbank spokeswoman, the necessary adjustment of processes and updating of data was fully completed in 2022. The background is the integration of the online subsidiary Comdirect Bank into the group.
Requirements for checking the legitimacy of new customers as well as processes and controls for updating customer data in Comdirect were checked. This would have resulted in rework. “The bank was constantly in close contact with the responsible supervisory authority,” said the spokeswoman. Of course, Commerzbank complied with Bafin’s requirements.
According to Bafin, the fine notice has been legally binding since March 28th.
Source: Stern
