A €960,000 fine has been levied against a Singapore trust company for AML violations.

A Singapore trust company has been fined €960,000 for failing to comply with anti-money-laundering legislation.

An inspection conducted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore in 2019 resulted in the monetary penalty being imposed on Vistra Trust.

It was discovered that the firm had committed major violations of anti-money laundering legislation placed on trust firms, which apparently put the firm at "a higher risk of being utilized as a conduit for criminal activity," according to Singapore Business Review.

A statement from MAS said the trust "did not adopt proper procedures to identify whether trust relevant parties offered a higher risk for money laundering or terrorism financing."

This resulted in certain higher-risk accounts not being identified and subjected to additional customer due diligence (CDD) processes both throughout the account acquisition process and on a continuing basis, according to the MAS report.

In addition, it is thought that the firm failed to determine where its clients' wealth came from and that it failed to gain top management approval for the development of a business with high-risk accounts.

Since then, the trust has paid the fine and implemented corrective actions to address the issues that were brought to its attention.

By fLEXI tEAM