The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has imposed financial sanctions on six exchange houses operating in the country and also fined them millions of dirhams for violating anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
The regulator said penalties have been imposed in line with Article 14 of the Federal Decree-Law No. (20) of 2018 on Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism and Financing of Illegal Organisations (AML/CFT Law).
The names of the six companies, however, were not disclosed by the regulator.
The apex bank said the six exchange houses were fined a total of Dh17.311 million for failures to achieve appropriate levels of compliance regarding their AML & Sanctions Compliance Frameworks by the deadline at the end of 2019.
The UAE has recently taken a host of measures and also introduced new legislation to ensure that the local financial companies adhere to AML/CFT laws. Dozens of companies have also been issued fines over the last couple of years for violating the norms.
All exchange houses operating in the UAE have been allowed adequate time by the Central Bank to remedy any shortcomings and were instructed in the middle of 2019 to ensure compliance by the end of that year, informing them that further shortcomings would result in penalties under the Federal Decree-Law No. (20) of 2018 and it’s executive regulation.
In order to achieve and maintain a high level of AML/CFT compliance, the Central Bank warned that it will continue to impose further administrative and/or financial sanctions on companies that are not complying with the local regulations.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Finance World staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
