FINRA Fines Credit Suisse over Anti-Money Laundering Policies

Courts Banking FINRA Anti-Money Laundering

In a December 5 press release, FINRA announced that it has fined Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC $16.5 million for anti-money laundering (AML), supervision and other violations. FINRA’s determination and penalty were based primarily on two deficiencies in the investment bank’s suspicious activity monitoring program. First, Credit Suisse relied too heavily on its registered representatives “to identify and escalate potentially suspicious trading, when, in practice, such high-risk activity was not always escalated and investigated, as required.” And, second, FINRA found that the firm failed to properly implement its automated surveillance system to monitor for potentially suspicious money movements.