Banking giant hit with record fine for reporting failures

U.S. banking giant Citigroup’s U.K. operation has been hit with a record fine for failures in its governance and controls that resulted in inaccurate reporting of its capital and liquidity positions to regulators.

The U.K.’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) announced that it has imposed a combined £43.9 million penalty on three firms — Citigroup Global Markets Ltd., Citibank N.A. and Citibank Europe plc — for failings in their internal controls and governance of regulatory reporting.

These shortcomings resulted in incomplete or inaccurate reports to the PRA, which meant that the regulator didn’t have an accurate view of the firms’ capital or liquidity positions.

“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,” said Sam Woods, deputy governor for prudential regulation and CEO of the PRA.

The bank agreed to resolve the case, qualifying for a 30% reduction on the fine imposed by the PRA. Without the discount, the fine would have been £62.7 million, the PRA said.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.