Fines of nearly $98 million were assessed against the holding company of Wells Fargo bank Thursday for its “historical inadequate oversight of sanctions compliance risks” which resulted in more than $530 million in prohibited transactions over a five-year period.
The penalty against the San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. includes a civil money penalty (CMP) from the Fed of $67.8 million and an additional $30 million fine assessed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
According to the regulator, the deficient oversight enabled the company’s subsidiary bank, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., to violate U.S. sanctions regulations by providing a trade finance platform to a foreign bank. The platform, called Eximbills, was a finance software platform, according to the Fed’s order.
The foreign institution, the Fed alleged, used the platform to process approximately $532 million in prohibited transactions between 2010 and 2015. The Fed did not name the