Swiss watchdog says Banca Credinvest breached money laundering rules

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has found that Banca Credinvest seriously breached anti-money laundering regulations in its handling of Venezuelan client relationships, the watchdog said on Tuesday.

It ordered the bank to monitor all private banking clients in order to identify and address increased money-laundering risks.

“In addition, as decided by the bank itself it must rapidly withdraw from all client relationships with a connection to Venezuela and may not accept any new high-risk clients (e.g. politically exposed persons) for three years or until all measures have been implemented and reviewed at a later stage,” FINMA said after opening enforcement proceedings in 2018 tied to alleged cases of corruption linked to Venezuelan oil company PDVSA.