NBU fined Ukrgasbank 65 million due to financial monitoring
The National Bank imposed a fine on the state-owned Ukrgasbank in the amount of UAH 64.6 million due to violations in the field of financial monitoring – the bank admits that there may have been violations in the part of gambling business tax evasion.
It is reported press service National Bank, Ukrgasbank.
The National Bank justifies the fine in the amount of UAH 64.62 million by not ensuring the proper organization of the intra-bank system of prevention and countermeasures and conducting primary financial monitoring. Namely, the NBU established a violation of the Law on prevention and countermeasures against the legalization of income obtained through criminal means.
According to the NBU, the violation consists in the bank’s improper fulfillment of the obligation to implement and update internal documents on financial monitoring, as well as in the absence of procedures sufficient for risk management.
In addition, the NBU recorded the bank’s failure to assess the risks inherent in its activities, improper provision of setting up and implementation of the automation system, improper performance of verification of new and existing clients, failure to provide online monitoring of information about the payer of funds transfers, improper application of a risk-oriented approach, and failure to reflect the specified in the client’s questionnaire, information obtained by the bank as a result of the inspection.
Ukrgasbank responded to the NBU’s decision. According to the bank’s statement, one of the directions of its cooperation with international payment systems (IPS) is providing associated and affiliated participants of the IPU with support in accessing the services of the IPU.
“That is, with the support of Ukrgasbank, associated and affiliated participants of international payment systems can provide their customers with services related to the issuance and maintenance of international payment cards, as well as the provision of payments using payment cards (acquiring),” the statement reads.
At the same time, the bank declares, the associated and affiliated members of MPS independently attracted customers, in particular – from the gambling industry, and provided them with Internet acquiring services. At the same time, the bank “did not have the opportunity to fully ensure systematic monitoring of compliance with the rules of non-cash payments by associated and affiliated participants.”
Ukrgasbank assumes that imperfection of the system in terms of ensuring internal monitoring and control according to compliance by affiliated participants with the rules of non-cash payments at work with gaming business, probablya number of unscrupulous participants of this market took advantage.
The state financial institution declares that as soon as it learned about the systematic nature of such violations, it “immediately blocked the terminals of the offending companies from the gaming business industry” and launched the process of terminating the concluded acquiring contracts with affiliated and associated participants. In addition, the bank says, it reviewed its own system of internal control over non-cash transactions to prevent such incidents in the future.
