HSBC penalized $85 million in the United Kingdom for anti-money laundering violations.

On Friday, the UK’s financial regulator said that HSBC had been fined 63.95 million pounds ($85.2 million) for failing to follow anti-money laundering procedures.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) stated it discovered major flaws in three critical aspects of HSBC’s transaction monitoring systems in the UK over an eight-year period from March 31, 2010 to March 31, 2018.

The penalties comes as the agency intensifies its assault on money laundering violations. A British court fined HSBC’s domestic rival NatWest 265 million pounds on Monday for failing to prevent the laundering of over 400 million pounds, some of which was dumped in garbage bags at a branch.

According to the FCA, HSBC committed a series of errors, including insufficient monitoring of money laundering and terrorist financing scenarios until 2014 and poor risk assessment of “new scenarios” after 2016.

The bank was also found to have had inappropriate testing and did not check the accuracy and completeness of data in monitoring systems.

“These failings are unacceptable and exposed the bank and community to avoidable risks, especially as the remediation took such a long time,” said Mark Steward, executive director at the FCA.

Story by : Norvisi Mawunyegah