Newsroom

December 27, 2018

Morgan Stanley fined $10M for AML program failures

moneyMorgan Stanley will pay a $10 million fine to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations. FINRA found that the company had anti-money laundering (AML) program and supervisory failures that spanned more than five years.

FINRA said shortcomings in Morgan Stanley's AML program failed to meet BSA requirements, including:

  • its automated AML surveillance system did not receive critical data from several systems, undermining its surveillance of tens of billions of dollars of wire and foreign currency transfers, including transfers to and from countries with high money-launder risk;

  • it failed to devote sufficient resources to review alerts generated by the automated AML surveillance system; and

  • its AML department did not reasonably monitor customers' deposits and trades in penny stock for potentially suspicious activity.

Earlier this month, UBS Financial Services Inc. was assessed a $14.5 million penalty by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which was coordinated with FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for BSA violations.

NAFCU has resources on BSA compliance available on its website.