GENEVA, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Switzerland's financial regular Monday chided banking group Credit Suisse for deficiencies in its anti-money laundering processes relating to alleged corruption cases around FIFA, world football's governing body, and the oil companies Petrobas and PDVSA.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA said in a statement Monday it had concluded "two enforcement procedures" against Credit Suisse, the country's second-biggest banking group behind UBS for actions mainly before 2014.
In the first "FINMA identified deficiencies in the bank's adherence to anti-money laundering due diligence obligations in relation to suspected corruption involving the International Federation of Association Football FIFA, the Brazilian oil corporation Petrobras and the Venezuelan oil corporation Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA)."
The second procedure relates to a significant business relationship for the bank with a politically exposed person (PEP).
"The bank was too slow to identify and treat the PEP client as posing increased risks. Moreover, the due diligence and corresponding documentation relating to the business relationship were incomplete," said FINMA.
FINMA said it has ordered measures to further improve anti-money laundering processes and to accelerate the implementation of steps already initiated by the bank that will be monitored by an independent third party.
Credit Suisse issued a statement saying it noted FINMA's announcement and acknowledged its conclusions as part of an ongoing review of cases originating between 2006 and 2014.
It said that since the restructuring of Credit Suisse in 2015, it has taken a number of actions "to continuously improve and strengthen compliance."
Among these, Credit Suisse said that in October 2015 it separated its legal and compliance functions, creating a dedicated Group Compliance and Regulatory Affairs function that reports directly to the CEO, with a new head sitting on its executive board.
"We have increased our global compliance headcount by 42 percent in less than three years, hiring over 800 additional compliance specialists," said the bank, noting that it has made more than 10,000 bank-wide control improvements to correct past weaknesses.
