ING has committed to improving its compliance with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) laws following regulatory inquiries by the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).
This comes after the Dutch bank voluntarily reported significant shortcomings in its compliance with its anti-money laundering obligations.
The consequent investigation revealed concerns over the group’s AML/CTF program, monitoring systems, and reporting to AUSTRAC.
AUSTRAC chief executive officer, Nicole Rose, said that the Enforceable Undertaking (EU) aims to ensure that any countermeasures from ING are appropriately directed towards future compliance.
“ING has been fully cooperating with AUSTRAC throughout our regulatory inquiries and has demonstrated an ongoing commitment to addressing concerns about the effectiveness of their AML/CTF systems and controls,” Ms Rose said.
Moreover, she acknowledged the “significant work already undertaken by ING in identifying and implementing improvements to their programs”.
ING has vowed to continue to refine its AML/CTF governance and assurance controls so that they remain fit for purpose into the future.
As part of the EU, ING will continue to develop its ML/TF risk assessment, international funds transfer instruction reports, suspicious matter reports, and transaction monitoring.
“[AUSTRAC] look forward to continuing to work with them to ensure they meet their obligations under the AML/CTF Act,” Ms Rose added.
“It’s important that all businesses enrolled with AUSTRAC have robust systems in place to ensure they meet their AML/CTF obligations and play their part in protecting Australia’s financial system from exploitation by criminals.”
NAB similarly entered an EU with AUSTRAC earlier this year.
