meta_id 3125760

On February 23, 2026, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) imposed an administrative monetary penalty of $42,075 on VersaBank, a bank headquartered in London, Ontario, for committing two serious violations under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and associated Regulations. The penalty has been paid in full and the case is closed. The first violation involved VersaBank's failure to develop and apply adequate written compliance policies and procedures as required under subsection 9.6(1) of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and paragraph 156(1)(b) of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Regulations. FINTRAC determined that VersaBank inadequately documented policies and procedures relating to the reasonable grounds to suspect threshold for suspicious transaction reports, fraud-related filing requirements, ongoing client monitoring, and prescribed risk assessments. Specifically, the bank's monitoring frequency for elevated and high-risk clients was identical, and its risk assessment policy required completion every three years rather than the mandated two-year requirement. The second violation concerned VersaBank's failure to take prescribed special measures for high-risk clients under subsection 9.6(3) of the act and section 157 of the Regulations. FINTRAC identified seven instances where VersaBank failed to correctly identify elevated and high-risk clients and apply enhanced due diligence measures. These included three clients incorrectly classified as standard risk despite documented risk factors, three clients with multiple internal control alerts and previous suspicious transaction reports requiring special measures, and one high-risk client lacking required enhanced due diligence. Both violations were classified as serious violations. The penalty determination considered criteria outlined in section 73.11 of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and section 6 of the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Administrative Monetary Penalties Regulations. The violations were identified during a compliance assessment activity.