CFTC orders UBS FSI to pay $8 million over AML monitoring failures
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said UBS Financial Services Inc. failed to supervise AML monitoring for foreign-currency wire transfers and agreed to an $8 million penalty.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Thursday it filed and settled charges against UBS Financial Services Inc. over supervision failures tied to anti-money laundering monitoring for foreign-currency wire transfers.
The agency said the conduct involved thousands of FX wires sent or received through retail customer commodity accounts over several years. The CFTC said the failures affected how suspicious activity was identified and reviewed.
According to the order, the conduct ran from January 2019 through June 2023. The CFTC said deficiencies in the configuration of surveillance tools and in data governance practices left thousands of foreign-currency wires either insufficiently monitored or outside AML transaction monitoring.
For part of that period, UBS FSI used a manually generated report that did not capture all relevant FX wires and was not tailored to identify suspicious patterns in those transactions, the agency said. The CFTC said UBS FSI later moved in 2021 to an automated monitoring system but did not properly configure the data flowing into it.
The order requires UBS FSI, which the CFTC described as a registered futures commission merchant, to pay an $8 million civil monetary penalty and to cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations.
The agency said UBS FSI was aware of the vulnerabilities because they had been the subject of prior enforcement proceedings by other government agencies and a self-regulatory organization. The CFTC also said it recognizes UBS FSI’s representations concerning remediation in connection with the matter.
The release said the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority announced related actions against UBS FSI on the same day. The CFTC thanked those agencies for their assistance.
The CFTC’s release did not provide additional detail on any further proceedings.
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