The Bank of Tanzania has penalised five commercial banks for violating the country’s anti-money (AML) laundering laws.
African Banking Corporation Tanzania, Equity Bank Tanzania, I&M Bank Tanzania, UBL Bank Tanzania and Habib African Bank have been hit with fines of TZS145m ($63,090), TZS580m ($252,360), TZS655m ($284,993), TZS325m ($141,408), and TZS175m ($76,143), respectively.
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The country’s central bank in a statement alleged that these banks failed to carry out appropriate customer due diligence and submit suspicious transaction reports to Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).
Apart from imposing fines, these banks have been mandated to implement several corrective measures within three months.
These measures include carrying out a fresh review of all Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance status and make sure that proper documentations are in place.
The five banks have also been mandated to bring all suspicious transactions to FIU’s notice.
They are required to assess adequacy of internal controls and put in place necessary measures to make sure controls are strong to overcome identified weaknesses.
Furthermore, the erring banks need to initiate disciplinary actions against employees who did not adhere to KYC requirements while opening implicated deposit accounts.
In August this year, Tanzania fined local lender National Bank of Commerce (NBC) for failing to establish a data centre in the country.
Prior to that, Diamond Trust Bank was penalised for violating rules on data and service availability.
