Under the act, reporting entities are required to report prescribed transactions to the police’s financial intelligence unit, which Westpac has failed to do, according to the central bank.
RBNZ claimed that “WBC designed and configured its prescribed transaction reporting (PTR) systems in a way that failed to detect and report all eligible international wire transfers”, which saw almost 8,000 transactions to overseas recipients not reported between July 2018 and February 2019.
Westpac were issued the official warning by RBNZ on Wednesday.
“This formal warning reflects the importance of the prescribed transaction reporting regime in building an intelligence picture across New Zealand’s financial system, and reiterates the seriousness with which we view non-compliance with the AML/CFT Act,” Police’s Financial Intelligence Unit, Deputy Governor and General Manager of Financial Stability, Geoff Bascand, said.
Neil Griffiths
Neil is the Deputy Editor of the wealth titles, including ifa and InvestorDaily.
Neil is also the host of the ifa show podcast.
