On 3 August, AUSTRAC charged Commonwealth Bank with AML.
- Initiated proceedings in federal court, on Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA).
- For non-compliance with AML/CTF Act, using intelligent deposit machines (IDMs).
Cash Deposits via Machine
- IDMs are ATMs that accept deposits by cash and cheque, to account of recipients.
- Funds are then available for transfer to other accounts, domestically or overseas.
- IDMs can accept up to 200 notes per deposit, up to $20,000 per cash transaction.
- CBA does not limit the number of IDM transactions a customer can make in a day.
- Allow anonymous cash deposit, if card entered in machine was not issued by CBA.
- Cardholder details unknown to CBA, banks did not need to give depositor details.
- Growth in CBA IOMs since roll out, from $89mn in cash in 2012 to $5.8bn in 2016.
Failure to Monitor for AML
- Alleged 53,700 contraventions, where CBA did not comply with AML/CTF program.
- Did not conduct assessment of AML/CTF) risk of IDMs, before their rollout in 2012.
- Took no steps to assess ML/TF risks until mid-2015, three years after introduction.
- In period, CBA did not comply with AML/CTF program, for monitoring transactions.
- Did not supply 53,506 threshold transaction reports (TTRs), to AUSTRAC, on time,
for cash trades of $10,000 or more through IDMs, total value is around $624.7mn. - Bank did not report suspicious matters involving transactions totalling over $77mn.
- Even after CBA aware of suspected money laundering or structuring with accounts.
- Did not monitor customers to mitigate and manage AML risks, doing business with.
Effectiveness
- Austrac sought declaratory relief, order for civil money penalties; payment of costs.
