Bank criticised over ‘serious and prolonged failures’ on 213m transactions in a decade

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Goldman Sachs has been fined £34.4m by the City regulator for misreporting millions of transactions over a decade.

The US investment bank was criticised by the Financial Conduct Authority for “serious and prolonged failures” at its London-based international arm after reports for more than 213m transactions between November 2007 and March 2017 were not filed in an accurate and timely manner.

The FCA also said Goldman “failed to take reasonable care to organise and control its affairs responsibly and effectively” in relation to those transactions.

Goldman’s fine is the largest imposed by the FCA to date over transaction reporting breaches.

The watchdog stressed the importance of receiving accurate data from the firms it regulates, saying transaction reports help to identify potential market abuse and combat crime.

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Mark Steward, the regulator’s executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said: “The failings in this case demonstrate a failure over an extended period to manage and test controls that are vitally important to the integrity of our markets. These were serious and prolonged failures.

“We expect all firms will take this opportunity to ensure they can fully detail their activity and are regularly checking their systems so any problems are detected and remedied promptly, unlike in this case.”

Goldman was originally in line for a £49m fine, but was given a 30% “discount” for agreeing to resolve the issues.

The Wall Street bank said in a statement: “We are pleased to have resolved this legacy matter. We dealt with the issues proactively at the time and have made significant investments across the period to develop and enhance our reporting procedures.”

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The bank is the latest to be hit with a fine by the FCA over transaction reporting issues, following a £27.6m penalty levied on UBS last week for similar failings between 2007 and 2017.

Twelve other firms have breached those FCA rules, including Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and Commerzbank.