CBA in hot water over money laundering breaches

By Reporter

— 1 minute read

03 August 2017

CBA is facing a civil court case after AUSTRAC accused the bank of failing to properly monitor millions of dollars in cash deposited via its ‘intelligent deposit machines’.

AUSTRAC has accused CBA of 53,700 contraventions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF) regarding the use of the bank's intelligent deposit machines (IDMs).

In a 'concise statement' filed in the Federal Court, AUSTRAC said the bank's IDMs are capable of accepting 200 notes per deposit, or up to $20,000 per cash transaction.

CBA does not limit the number of IDM transactions a customer can make in one day, and deposits using the machines are instantly credited to the recipient's account, the statement said.

AUSTRAC said IDMs facilitate anonymous cash deposits, because a card from any financial institution can be used to activate the machine.

The government agency said CBA failed to carry out an AML/CTF risk assessment prior to rolling out the IDMs, nor after it witnessed an "exponential rise in cash deposits through IDMs".

In its filing, AUSTRAC included details of four criminal syndicates that used CBA's IDMs to make millions of dollars in cash transactions.

"CBA failed to give 53,506 threshold transaction reports to AUSTRAC on time for cash transactions of $10,000 or more through IDMs from November 2012 to September 2015," said AUSTRAC.

"AUSTRAC alleges that the bank failed to report suspicious matters either on time or at all involving transactions totalling over $77 million."