Deutsche Bank has received a warning from the banking supervisory authority.
The Bafin had “ordered specific measures for Deutsche Bank AG” to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, the supervisory authority announced.
These measures are based on Bafin orders of September 2018 and February 2019.
Bafin is threatening Deutsche Bank with fines “in the event of non-compliance”.
Deutsche Bank confirmed a new order but emphasized that supervisors had not found any additional deficiencies.
Rather, it is about old deficits, for which the Bafin has mainly set deadlines in 2023, according to information from the FAZ.
Hanno Mussler
Editor in Business.
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Apparently, however, the banking regulator has doubts that Deutsche Bank will meet these deadlines.
Since September 2018, the Bafin has had a "monitor" at Deutsche Bank that checks to what extent it has rectified deficiencies in the "KYC" customer control.
Such monitors normally stay on site for three years.
In the case of Deutsche Bank, the assignment was extended in April 2021, probably for another three years.
The monitor and the threatened fines can be seen as indications that the supervisory authority is not satisfied with Deutsche Bank's efforts to date to monitor new customers during onboarding and suspicious transactions by existing customers if money laundering is suspected.
A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank countered this impression: "We have agreed with Bafin on the necessary measures and have already implemented a large part of them," she said on Monday and was confident that the deficits would be eliminated in good time.
"We will continue to deploy the necessary resources and ensure appropriate prioritization in bank governance to continuously improve our control environment and meet the expectations of regulators," said the spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank.