meta_id 3290732

On July 2, 2026, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) approved an administrative penalty against Chinatrust Commercial Bank (CTB) for violations of banking regulations. A former CTB employee misappropriated approximately New Taiwan Dollar (NTD) 2.97 million in automated teller machine (ATM) clearing funds and financial clearing funds between November 2024 and August 2025 over a period of approximately ten months. The FSC determined that CTB failed to establish and implement adequate internal control systems. The bank violated Article 45-1(1) of the Banking Act and Articles 3(1), 8(1), and 8(3) of the Regulations Governing the Internal Control and Audit Systems of Financial Holding Companies and Banks. The misappropriated funds comprised clearing balances that had been on account for more than two years with no reported anomalies or customer complaints. The FSC identified specific control deficiencies: CTB did not establish adequate mechanisms to monitor the return of long-standing clearing funds to customers, nor did it establish mechanisms to detect abnormal concentration of clearing fund returns to individual accounts. Additionally, CTB failed to properly execute its sampling and verification procedures for clearing fund returns below a certain threshold, with supervisory personnel approving reports without documenting evidence of actual execution. The FSC imposed a fine of NTD 4 million on CTB under Article 129(7) of the Banking Act. CTB must report the offending employee to the National Association of ROC Banks in accordance with established procedures and disclose a de-identified version of this case to the association's website for member institutions' reference. The FSC emphasised that financial institutions must continuously review the appropriateness and effectiveness of operational control mechanisms and strengthen internal compliance programmes to prevent similar incidents.