The People’s Bank of China is stepping up monitoring of money laundering activity with increased investigation and punishment, The Paper reported.
The central bank issued 6.1 million yuan (US$890,000) in penalties to the Bank of Communications, the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, Ping An Bank, Galaxy Securities and China Life Insurance in one day.
The penalties were handed out due to violations of regulations found during anti-money laundering inspections. The relevant responsible people at the five institutions were also fined a total 520,000 yuan.
The largest penalty, 1.7 million yuan, was issued to the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, for its failure to comply with requirements of customer identification, including maintaining customer identification data and transaction records, reporting large-amount or suspicious transactions, and trading with unidentified customers.
Earlier this week, the central bank’s Anti-Money Laundering Bureau issued four documents to require financial institutions to strengthen anti-money laundering controls.