meta_id 3374906

On August 3, 2026, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined UBS Financial Services Inc. (UBS Financial) $20 million for anti-money laundering (AML) violations. FINRA determined that UBS Financial failed to establish and implement an AML compliance program reasonably expected to detect and cause the reporting of suspicious transactions involving foreign currency wires. Additionally, UBS Financial did not reasonably implement its customer due diligence program with respect to certain retail customers and failed to timely detect and report suspicious money movements. Between January 2019 and June 2023, UBS Financial failed to reasonably monitor more than 60,000 foreign currency wires totaling more than $10 billion. This represented a repeat violation, as FINRA had previously fined UBS Financial $4.5 million in December 2018 for failing to reasonably monitor foreign currency wires. Despite this prior settlement, UBS Financial continued using an unreasonable legacy monitoring system through January 2021, which consisted of quarterly manual reviews of reports containing thousands of wires. This system did not reasonably allow identification of suspicious or unusual patterns and often omitted material information. When UBS Financial implemented an automated transaction monitoring tool in February 2021, it contained an incomplete data file and labeling change that omitted approximately 33 percent of foreign currency wires in retail customer accounts. The unmonitored wires involved high-risk geographic locations, excessive transfers, unusually large dollar amounts, and instances where UBS Financial had previously filed suspicious activity reports for similar activity by the same accounts. UBS Financial also failed to reasonably implement customer due diligence, incorrectly assigning lower risk ratings to certain retail customers with connections to higher-risk geographic locations, including Russia, unexplained changes in domicile and employment, material adverse media, and potential political exposure. Bill St. Louis, Executive Vice President and Head of Enforcement at FINRA, said the action underscores FINRA's approach to progressive discipline for recidivist misconduct. UBS Financial accepted FINRA's findings without admitting or denying them.