Credit card firm Capital One fined for violating US anti-money laundering law

[BENGALURU] Credit card firm Capital One Financial Corp has been fined US$390 million for engaging in what the US government called willful and negligent violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money laundering law, a Treasury Department bureau said on Friday.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said in a statement that Capital One admitted to willfully failing to implement and maintain an effective program to guard against money laundering as required by law.

FinCEN said the financial services company admitted that it failed to file "thousands of suspicious activity reports" and "thousands of Currency Transaction Reports" with respect to a business unit known as the Check Cashing Group.

"The failures outlined in this enforcement action are egregious," FinCENdirector Kenneth Blanco said in a statement.

The violations occurred from at least 2008 through 2014, and caused millions of dollars in suspicious transactions to go unreported in a timely and accurate manner, FinCEN added.

REUTERS