The financial supervisory authority BaFin imposes penalties on Commerzbank AG - Is BaFin now taking stronger action?

Commerzbank AG, the universal successor to Comdirect Bank AG, is once again the focus of the financial supervisory authority. Last Monday, BaFin published the news that Commerzbank AG had been fined €1.45 million. The background is the lack of implementation of the obligations to prevent money laundering. The publication states that Commerzbank has breached its supervisory duties. The bank's internal supervision to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing had not been sufficiently implemented. Specifically, the existing customer data had not been updated in a timely manner, internal security measures were inadequate and in three cases the enhanced due diligence obligations had not been applied. This gives the impression that Commerzbank has massive problems with regard to theregular review in the KYC process.

Is this an isolated case or is BaFin taking stronger action? Both the frequency of inspections and the associated penalties are constantly increasing. Other current examples are:

• Solaris SE (07.03.2024): Solaris Bank was fined € 6.5 million due to systematic deficits in the submission of suspicious activity reports to the FIU.
• Société Générale S.A. Frankfurt branch (19.02.2024): Inadequate data processing systems for effective transaction monitoring led BaFin to issue an order to improve the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing.
• Deutsche Bank AG (15.02.2024): Threat for the levying of penalty payments, as well as the extension of the mandate of the Special Representative until 30.10.2024 are a consequence of the deficiencies in the monitoring of transactions. Deutsche Bank is therefore once again faced with the challenge of adapting its transaction monitoring systems in a timely manner and remedying the deficiencies.

In addition to the larger banks, many smaller banks are also affected by BaFin's stricter controls.

In the published BAFin report "Risks in the focus of BaFin 2024", the financial supervisory authority also focuses on the topic of money laundering prevention in addition to new, relevant EU regulations such as DORA. It is increasingly identifying risks in payment transactions, fast-growing companies and companies in the crypto asset sector. BaFin's approach focuses on examining the supervised institutions with regard to the appropriateness of the prevention systems, such as risk analysis, as well as the measures used in the area of customer identification and transaction monitoring.

In these dynamic times, CURENTIS is at the side of the obligated parties. Our support ranges from operational support to advice from our experienced consultants, as well as system-side support from our AI-supported software solution YourKYCplus.