The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which operates under the Central Bank, yesterday said it fined three finance companies to the tune of Rs.2.3 million in the past six months up to December 31, 2020, under the anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) laws.

Accordingly, Richard Pieris Finance Ltd was fined Rs.300,000 on October 15, 2020, while Softligic Finance PLC and Siyapatha Finance PLC were fined one million rupees each on November 4, 2020 and November 25, 2020, respectively.

“Penalties were imposed mainly on the violations of the Financial Institutions (Customer Due Diligence) Rules, No. 1 of 2016, in relation to sanctions screening,” the Central Bank said in a statement.

“The penalty may be prescribed taking into consideration the nature and gravity of the relevant non-compliance of the financial institution or the designated non-finance business,” it added.
The Monetary Board of the Central Bank has decided to publish the penalties imposed on the financial institutions by the FIU, in order to improve the AML/CFT compliance level in the country.