Raymond James & Associates (RJA) and Raymond James Financial Services (RJFS) have been fined $17m by Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as settlement for failures to implement adequate anti-money laundering (AML) programs.
Instead of setting up necessary AML programs, the firms relied on written procedures and systems across various departments to identify suspicious activity that resulted in their failure to properly detect and investigate suspicious activity for several years, the regulator said.
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RJFS, which was already sanctioned in 2012 for insufficient AML procedures and had agreed to review its program, has now been fined $9m. RJA has been fined $8m, while its ex-AML compliance officer Linda Busby has been fined and suspended for three months.
"During its investigation, FINRA found that the firms failed to conduct required due diligence and periodic risk reviews for foreign financial institutions, and that Busby failed to ensure that RJA’s reviews were conducted. RJFS also failed to establish and maintain an adequate Customer Identification Program," the US regulator said.
FINRA executive vice president and chief of enforcement Brad Bennett said: "Raymond James had significant systemic AML failures over an extended period of time, made even more egregious by the fact the firm was previously sanctioned in this area.
"The monitoring for suspicious transactions is an essential part of protecting our financial system and firms must allocate adequate resources to their AML compliance efforts. This case demonstrates that when there are broad-based failures within specific areas of responsibility, we will seek individual liability where appropriate."
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By GlobalData
