It becomes the second banking giant to face a big fine this week
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has been hit with a $1.3-million penalty by Canada’s financial intelligence agency for non-compliance with money laundering and terrorist financing measures.
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac) said it had imposed the penalty after the bank failed to submit a suspicious transaction report when there were grounds to suspect it was related to possible terrorist or money laundering activity.
The Centre said the bank did not submit a report for an instance in which it knew a client had been arrested and charged with criminal offences – and over a thousand instances were also identified where information linked to money transfers was incomplete.
The banking giant also failed to report information linked to large money transfers from outside Canada, according to Fintrac.
CIBC spokesman Tom Wallis told The Canadian Press that the fines concerned a relatively small amount of transactions, and said it was committed to identifying, deterring and detecting financial crimes.
The fine arrives just days after Fintrac levied a $7.4-million penalty against RBC for administrative violations of anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
