South Africa’s central bank fined the country’s four largest lenders a total of 125 million rand ($11.9 million) after finding deficiencies in their controls to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. The penalties for FirstRand, Nedbank Group and Barclays’s South African unit were 30 million rand, 25 million rand and 10 million rand respectively. The biggest penalty of 60 million rand was imposed on Standard Bank Group, which was also fined by a U.K. regulator earlier this year. The South African Reserve Bank said in a statement that while verifying customer details, maintaining records and managing and processing suspicious transactions were three deficiencies identified. The fines do not indicate the banks facilitated transactions involving money laundering and terrorist financing. Nedbank and Standard Bank also need better controls for detecting property associated with terrorists, the regulator said.
