MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Mexican regulators impose highest fine ever on HSBC for money-laundering
HSBC, a conduit for “drug kingpins and rogue nations” said the US Senate 
A Mexican army convoy takes control of a highway leading to the US Mexican regulators have imposed a fine of 27.5 million dollars on banking giant HSBC for its failure to comply with money-laundering regulations.
The fine comes a week after HSBC chief compliance officer resigned over allegations that the bank ignored warnings that Mexican drug money was being allowed to pass through the bank.
The fine is the highest ever imposed by Mexican regulators.
It constitutes 51.5% of the 2011 annual profit of HSBC Mexican subsidiary.
Mexico's National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) said it had imposed the fine against HSBC due to its “non-compliance with anti-money laundering systems and controls”.
HSBC Mexico issued a statement acknowledging that it failed to report 39 suspicious transactions and had been late in reporting 1.729 others.
“HSBC Mexico recognises it failed to strictly comply with banking regulations, and with the standards that regulators and clients expect of our institution,” it said.
Last week, a United States Senate committee found that HSBC had provided a conduit for “drug kingpins and rogue nations”.
HSBC head of compliance, David Bagley, resigned at the Senate committee hearing. The US department of justice is conducting a criminal investigation into HSBC operations.
The fine by the CNBV is separate from any settlement the bank might reach with the US department of justice.
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Read all comments“Mexican regulators have imposed a fine of 27.5 million dollars on banking giant HSBC for its failure to comply with money-laundering regulations”
Jul 28th, 2012 - 06:05 am 0I wonder if this regulators received bribes from HSBC to look the other way for years.
Not to mention Walmart that paid $24m in bribes to Mexican officials for example.
The HSBC case has nothing to do with government corruption, of course there´s plenty of that in Mexico, our mexican politicians wrote the book, the corrupted brazilian politicians are nothing more than copy-cats.
Jul 28th, 2012 - 02:24 pm 0Bank regulations in Mexico are very strict today. No individual can deposit more than 1,700 dollars in a bank in one month, and with special permit you are allowed to deposit a maximum of 4,500 usd. You can buy all the dollars you want, but you cannot deposit them into the banks once you have bought them. All cash deposits are heavily taxed, so buying cars or houses has to be done by check or wire transfer or debit or credit cards. All these mechanisms are in place precisely to stop drug dealers from being able to launder their dollars. Car agencies, real estate, shops, they all prefer electronic purchasing.
But NAFTA is the largest trade bloc in the world, the trade between the US, Canada and Mexico is in the hundreds of billions, Mexico exports more than 260 billion usd and buys more than 160 billion from the US, consequently hundreds of billions of dollars are traded every day between mexican and american banks and there will be always an opportunity to do money laundering , specially if the bank´s internal procedures are relaxed.
oh there you go again. typical mexican..burito eater.
Jul 30th, 2012 - 03:34 am 0Brazil and other south american nations are less corrupted than your shitty nation Monterryburitohead. But ach, as usual, mexicans prefer look the otherway “oh oh, they are corrupted too”.
As i typed many times. Mexico is a shit hole. It exports it's people to the US to send money back home. It's politicians are so corrupted but when caught, they act tough and blame it on the US and in this case like to talk also of corruption in other nations. If Nafta was such a success, Mexico would not export it's people to the US...oh wait...majority of the wetbacks prefer live somewhere else.
“Bank regulations in Mexico are very strict today”
They are so strict, that corruption is still rampant and none go to jail if caught. same case with the walmart scandal..and now with HSBC. Bank of America also got caught red handed bribing mexican politicians not to do anything.
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