Germany’s financial watchdog BaFin has imposed a record €45-million penalty on JPMorgan Chase for shortcomings in anti-money laundering (AML) controls, the Financial Times reported, citing the supervisory body.
BaFin said JPMorgan’s Frankfurt-based subsidiary, which directs the financial institution’s operations across the EU, “systematically failed” to file suspicious transactions reports in a timely fashion between October 2021 and September 2022. The German agency said the fine reflects both the scale of the breaches and the size of the bank.
It is BaFin’s largest penalty against a bank to date, surpassing a €40-million fine levied on Deutsche Bank in 2015 for similar failures, the FT noted.
JPMorgan said the fine relates to “historical findings” and that the timing of its suspicious activity filings “did not impede any investigations by the authorities,” the newspaper reported. The bank added it is “deeply committed to detecting, preventing and reporting money laundering and financial crimes.”
People familiar with the matter told the FT that JPMorgan has since overhauled its AML systems and tripled staffing in its financial-crimes compliance unit compared with 2021.
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