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The firm introduced Thursday that it has agreed to the 1.three billion Australian greenback ($920 million) nice with AUSTRAC, a regulator in Australia that fights monetary crime. Westpac additionally admitted as half of that deal that it broke anti-money laundering and terrorism financing legal guidelines greater than 23 million instances.

“I would like to apologise sincerely for the bank’s failings,” CEO Peter King stated in an announcement. “We are committed to fixing these issues to ensure that these mistakes do not happen again. This has been my number one priority.”

If the nice is accepted by an Australian courtroom, it will be the largest company penalty within the nation’s historical past. A 700 million Australian greenback ($493 million) nice was levied on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in 2018 after that financial institution admitted it failed to look at legal guidelines to stop money laundering and financing of terrorism.

Westpac shares slumped Thursday in Sydney, and had been final buying and selling down about 1%.

Australian regulators pursued authorized motion in opposition to Westpac almost a yr in the past after they stated the financial institution didn’t report tens of millions of directions for monetary transfers out and in of Australia.

The regulatory watchdog stated on the time that Westpac uncared for to do its due diligence on transactions to the Philippines and different components of Southeast Asia “that have known financial indicators relating to potential child exploitation.”

King stated the corporate has made adjustments to the way it screens transactions, and has employed tons of of individuals chargeable for looking for monetary crime. The financial institution additionally created an government place who’s instantly chargeable for bettering its potential to deal with monetary crimes.

The allegations rocked the financial institution and led to the resignation of former CEO Brian Hartzer final November.

The nice additionally considerably exceeds what Westpac put aside as cost for the scandal. In its announcement Thursday, the financial institution stated it had earlier estimated a potential penalty of 900 million Australian {dollars} ($634 million).

The penalty displays the “serious and systemic nature” of Westpac’s non-compliance, AUSTRAC stated in an announcement Thursday.

“We have been, and will continue to work collaboratively with Westpac and all businesses we regulate to support them to meet their compliance and reporting obligations to ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future,” stated AUSTRAC chief government Nicole Rose.

— Angus Watson contributed to this report.

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