Bank of England fines Citi £44m over regulatory failings
The UK operations of American bank Citigroup have been fined £44.0m by the Bank of England for regulatory failings.
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11:10 22/04/24
The Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority – which regulates and supervises financial services firms – said the fine concerned failings in internal controls and governance arrangements which underpinned compliance with regulatory reporting requirements.
In particular, the PRA found that between 19 June 2014 and 31 December 2018, Citi’s UK operations’ “regulatory reporting framework was not designed, implemented or operating effectively”. The firms involved are Citigroup Global Markets, Citibank NA London branch and Citibank Europe UK branch. Together they have been fined £43.9m.
Bank noted that Citi remained in surplus to its liquidity and capital requirements at all times. However, it added: “The failings persisted over a significant length of time and were serious and widespread in nature.
“This led to significant errors in the firms’ returns, including six substantive matters which had a material or potentially material impact on the returns.” As a result, the submitted returns were “unreliable”.
Sam Woods, chief executive of the PRA and the Bank's deputy governor for prudential regulation, said: “Accurate regulatory returns from firms are vital for the PRA in fulfilling our role. Citi failed to deliver accurate returns and failed to meet the standards of governance and oversight of regulatory reporting which we expect of a systemically important bank.”
In a statement, Citi said it had since “fully remediated” the issues identified by the PRA.
“Citi places a high priority on meeting its regulatory reporting requirements, and has devoted significant resources to UK financial reporting before, during and after the period to which the PRA’s notice relates,” it continued.
“The PRA acknowledges that Citi has made substantial strategic enhancements to its regulatory reporting infrastructure in the UK, and has also conducted a review of the systems and controls underpinning its regulatory reporting framework.”