Canada just fined the world’s largest bank for not following anti-money laundering rules. A local subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) paid over $700k in penalties last year. Despite only being fined weeks ago, FINTRAC, Canada’s financial intelligence unit, found the problems during a routine audit in 2019. The regulatory body says the bank failed to file suspicious transaction reports, even when they had reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering or terrorist financing.

Chinese State-Owned Bank Found In Violation Of Anti-Money Laundering Reporting Standards

The Canadian subsidiary of the world’s largest bank was lax with its reporting standards, says a government agency. Following a routine compliance audit in 2019, Canadian authorities found several “administrative violations.” Those include:

• Failure to treat activities in respect of some entities as high risk and to take the prescribed special measures;
• Failure to submit suspicious transaction reports where there were reasonable grounds to suspect that transactions were related to a money laundering or a terrorist financing offense; and
  Failure to institute and document the prescribed review of some areas of its compliance policies and procedures.
• More bluntly, FINTRAC accused them of not following anti-money laundering rules.

Canada Hits The World’s Largest Bank With A $700k Fine

Two years later, they’re circling back and asking the bank to pay a fine. Despite the audit being conducted in 2019, the fine was issued on October 4, 2021. ICBC has since paid the $701,250 fine. A lot of questions about how the fine’s value was determined. However, that data isn’t publicly available at this point.

The Canadian regulator is using the opportunity to remind financial institutions they’ll continue to ensure they follow compliance. “…we will be firm in ensuring that businesses continue to do their part and we will take appropriate actions when they are needed,” said Sarah Paquet, Director and Chief Executive Officer, FINTRAC…read more.

Canada’s real gross domestic product (GDP) increased 0.6% in November 2021, Statistics Canada announced February 1, lifting GDP 0.2% higher than it was in February 2020 – before the pandemic took its toll on the economy.

This was the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

Gains were seen across almost all sectors, with both services-producing (up 0.6%) and goods-producing industries (up 0.5%) seeing growth.

The report comes before the surge in Omicron cases in December, but StatsCan says it appears that so far, real GDP for December will likely be unchanged.

Douglas Porter, chief economist at BMO Economics, said the 0.6% increase was higher than anticipated growth of 0.3%.

“The sturdy growth in the days just prior to the spread of Omicron show, yet again, how the Canadian economy can rebound forcefully when it is allowed to re-open,” Porter said in a note to investors February 1. “These results overall are a bit better than expected, with the flash estimate of 6.3% growth for all of Q4 likely best capturing the underlying resiliency late last year…read more.

Canada’s central bank is holding interest rates at 0.25 per cent, but warns that increases will be coming to combat high inflation.

On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada (BOC) maintained interest rates at their current levels, despite the economy having recovered from the pandemic, including job numbers returning to pre-pandemic levels by the end of last year. In its decision, the bank says global recovery remains uneven and the Omicron variant continues to cause supply chain bottlenecks.

Inflation rose to 4.8 per cent in December for the first time since 1991. The bank argues the causes of high inflation — such as supply chain shortages — are temporary and will ease to three per cent by the end of 2022.

“Interest rates need to increase to control inflation,” Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday.

“Canadians should expect a rising path for interest rates. We are committed to bringing inflation back to target.”…read more.