The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has fined of AED45.7m ($12.4m) on 11 banks which failed to achieve compliance towards anti money laundering (AML) laws.

As per the CBUAE, these banks had not achieved the levels of compliance set under the Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Illegal Organisations (AML/CFT Law) as at the end of 2019.

The central bank further added that all those banks were given ample time to remedy any such shortcomings and were also instructed in the middle of 2019 to ensure that they comply to the rules set under the AML/CFT Law by the end of that year. Further shortcomings would attract penalties, the central bank emphasised.

In a statement the bank said: “The CBUAE will continue to work closely with all financial institutions in the UAE to achieve and maintain high levels of AML/CFT compliance and will continue to impose further administrative and/or financial sanctions, as per the law, in cases of non-compliance.”

Last month, the CBUAE held the first Compliance Officers Forum with an aim to create a dialogue between the central bank and chief compliance officers of all banks. The forum discussed expectations from compliance function and banks’ risk management.

The agenda of the forum was on complying with the actions recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). It also discussed about the progress of the national initiative to digitise ‘Know-your-customer’ process across the banking sector.

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