The Bank of Mozambique imposed fines of 208 million meticais (3.3 million euros) on seven banks, a mobile phone financial system and four microfinance operators between June 2021 and August, it announced on Monday.
The sanctions refer to the “Violation of prudential, foreign exchange and prevention and fight against money laundering and terrorist financing regulations”the central bank said in a statement.
The largest fine, amounting to 98.8 million meticalis (1.5 million euros), was applied to the standard bench and justified with three violations in the 2022 inspection, now being revealed after lawsuits made public by the regulator against that bank related to the same matters.
Among the infractions is “the discovery of new parallel networks in addition to the single national network”, the SIMO network, which interconnects the country’s ATMs.
The prohibition of carrying out “exchange operations using rates other than the reference rates” is also considered violated, as well as the breach of the “duty of information in carrying out exchange operations”.
First Capital Bank was fined in 67 million meticais (one million euros) after an inspection in 2021, for opening branches without prior authorization.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) is subject to a penalty of 28 million meticais (448 thousand euros) for three irregularities in the 2018 inspection: non-compliance with the duty of continuous surveillance of commercial relations (including the origin of the funds), as well as in the special control of transactions with intensive use of cash without cause that justifies their origin .
UBA is also accused of violating the “duty to report suspicious transactions”.
The Absa and BCI banks were fined four million meticais (64,000 euros) each for “failure to comply with verification and information duties in carrying out exchange operations” in 2021.
Two minor fines were applied to Access Bank (500 thousand meticals, around eight thousand euros) for not signing the Annual Report and Accounts by the administrators in 2020 and to Moza Banco (300 thousand meticalis, around 4,800 euros) for non-compliance. of the agency registration deadline in 2021.
In addition to traditional banks, Vodafone’s mobile wallet system M-Pesa was fined 5.3 million meticais (85,000 euros) for not meeting the reporting and accounting deadline in 2021.
Four microfinance houses were fined, in total, 2.3 million meticais (37 thousand euros) for different irregularities, such as granting credit without authorization from the Bank of Mozambique, omission of information and opening of branches without authorization.
Source: Observadora
