TITLE: Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission Imposes Administrative Penalty on Taichung Commercial Bank for Anti-Money Laundering Deficiencies
BODY:
On May 12, 2026, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) announced an administrative penalty of New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) 32 million against Taichung Commercial Bank for deficiencies in deposit account opening procedures, customer identity continuous review operations, and account monitoring mechanisms.
The FSC identified violations of the Banking Act Article 45-1(1) and the Regulations Governing the Internal Control and Audit Systems of Financial Holding Companies and Banks, as well as the Money Laundering Control Act and the Regulations Governing Anti-Money Laundering of Financial Institutions. The violations were identified across ten branches (Tanzi, Zhongzheng, Beitun, Toufen, Yuanlin, Dounan, West Taichung, Taipei, Zuoying, and Wuqi) handling 21 corporate deposit accounts since April 2024.
Key deficiencies included: failure to establish adequate customer identification and continuous identity verification procedures for corporate accounts; inadequate review mechanisms for online banking transaction limits; insufficient monitoring of suspicious transactions; and failure to properly document account opening procedures. The bank did not maintain adequate controls over agent-conducted transactions across multiple corporate accounts or establish consistent anomaly detection standards across branches. Additionally, the bank failed to consistently report suspected money laundering transactions despite internal system alerts and inter-bank alert notifications.
The FSC requires the bank to conduct comprehensive reviews of all employee-initiated account openings, engage external professional institutions within one month to recalibrate anti-money laundering mechanisms, complete a full responsibility assessment within two months, and strengthen compliance culture across the organisation. The FSC also mandated increased operational risk capital provisions under the Capital Adequacy and Capital Grade Management Regulations.