Sri Lanka’s Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank, the island’s anti-money laundering watchdog, has imposed fines on three licensed finance companies for violating Financial Transactions Reporting law.
The penalties were imposed for violating customer due diligence on third party deposits obtaining approval for Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), sanctions screening and financial transaction reporting, the FIU said.
The penalty may be prescribed taking into consideration the nature and gravity of relevant non- compliance of the Financial Institution or the Designated Non Finance Business, FIU revealed.
Accordingly, as the regulator for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) in the country, the FIU imposed penalties amounting to LKR 2.3 million in total for the period from 01.06.2020 to 31.12.2020 to enforce compliance on three Financial Institutions.
The Monetary Board of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka has decided to publish the penalties imposed on the three Financial Institutions by the FIU in order to improve the AML/CFT compliance level in the country.
Penalties were imposed mainly on the violations of Financial Institutions (Customer Due Diligence) Rules, No. 1 of 2016 in relation to sanctions screening.
Richard Pieris Finance Ltd has been fined a sum of LKR 300,000 on 15-10-2020, Softlogic Finance PLC has been fined LKR 1 million on 04-11-2020 and Siyapatha Finance PLC has been fined LKR 1 million on 25-11-2020.