Financial watchdog orders Deutsche Bank to step up money laundering controls

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -German finance watchdog BaFin has told Deutsche Bank to take specific measures to improve efforts to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing or face fines, the latest rebuke in regulatory proceedings against the bank that started in 2018.

BaFin said in a brief statement on its website late on Friday it had ordered the bank on Sept. 28 to take specific measures or else face fines, part of regulatory requirements that were imposed on the bank from September 2018.

The regulator declined to give further details.

Deutsche Bank said there were no new findings in BaFin's order, that the deficiencies were previously identified and that deadlines were mutually agreed.

"We are fully aligned with the BaFin on the necessary measures and have already completed a large proportion of them," the bank said in its statement.

BaFin has repeatedly taken Deutsche to task over tougher safeguards to prevent money laundering. In 2018, it installed auditor KPMG as a special monitor at Deutsche to oversee progress and last year expanded KPMG's mandate.

It has in the past taken issue with how the bank vets its customers and monitors their transactions, among other routines.

Deutsche Bank's struggle to come to grips with the matter came to a head in April, when prosecutors, federal police and other officials searched the bank's headquarters in Frankfurt in a move that Deutsche at the time said was linked to suspicions of money laundering it had reported to the authorities.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, additional reporting by Tom Sims. Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Jane Merriman)