Report: FCA hands Deutsche Bank record fine for Russia trades

MOSCOW, Jan 31 (PRIME) -- Britain’s financial regulator fined Deutsche Bank 163 million British pounds (U.S. $203.77 million) for serious failings in relation to anti-money laundering controls, it said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The fine was the biggest ever imposed by the Financial Conduct Authority or its predecessor, the Financial Services Authority.

The regulator said that inadequate controls by Deutsche Bank meant that its Russian subsidiary was able to execute more than $6 billion of so-called “mirror trades”, where stocks were bought in rubles and sold at the same time in U.S. dollars, in a manner “highly suggestive of financial crime”.

It added that a further $3.8 billion in suspicious “one-sided” trades also occurred.

On Monday, New York’s banking regulator said Deutsche Bank had agreed to pay it $425 million for the “mirror trading” scheme, saying the lender had conducted its business in an unsafe and unsound manner.

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