The FSA has fined UBS £8m - its third largest fine on record - for allowing four employees unauthorised access to at least 39 customer accounts.
The breaches occurred between January 2006 and December 2007 at UBS' London-based wealth management business, and were only revealed after a whistleblower raised concerns.
UBS employees engaged in the trading of foreign exchange and precious metals using customer money without authorisation, attributing losses to customers' accounts.
As many as 50 unauthorised transactions a day were taking place during the height of the operation, according to an internal UBS investigation.
The FSA found UBS failed to manage and control risks within its international wealth management business model.
It also lacked effective corrective measures to pick up on breach warnings or provide sufficient supervision over customer-facing employees.
Margaret Cole, FSA director of enforcement and financial crime, says:"The penalty, one of the largest fines we have levied, reflects our tougher enforcement stance and our policy of imposing steep penalties to achieve credible deterrence.
"These employees were able to take advantage of UBS' inadequate systems and controls, giving them free rein to make unauthorised trades with customer money that they were then able to conceal.
"It is imperative, particularly in these more challenging financial conditions, that firms have suitable systems and controls in place to keep their houses in order. Where firms fall short in this regard, the consequences will be severe."
An early settlement with the FSA means UBS qualified for a 20% discount on the fine - without the discount, the FSA would have imposed a penalty of £10m.
UBS has since paid compensation in excess of $42m by way of redress for its customers' losses.
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Hypocrits
Whilst I most certainly do not condone the actions of the UBS staff and the bank deserves to be punished for such failings, I just wish the consequences to the FSA were as severe due to their failings in supervision of banks and their blatant lack of compliance regarding structured products etc. If the same approach was adopted we all might feel as if we had a regulator that cared as opposed to one that likes to appear tough after the event. Pigs might fly! The whole world has lost a hell of a lot more money than this becuase of the regulatory failures yet no punishment appears to have been sanctioned. Just bonuses and lets have more staff and £200m over budget. Wow! How impressive is that. If any small IFA ran such a shambolic organisation they woud be publicly censured, chastised and de-authorised. Once again the Quango commonly known as the FSA pats itself on the back for taking action only after a whistleblower pointed to where the action is. I sincerely hope that if the FSA is abolished, this load of jobsworths don't get their fat redundancy cheque on the Friday then turn up on Monday morning in the same job under a different regulatory name. Is it just me that thinks this is more than a slim possibility? Does compliance only apply to authorised firms and not the FSA? It certainly appears so! It's a bit like the police being exempt from all the legal requirements that the rest of the populations are expected to adhere to. Here we have an organisation that clearly considers itself exempt from all blame and consequences which is highly unfair and should be considered a breach of it's own TCF guidelines.
Posted by: Anon666
UBS receives £8m Fine
Are we supposed to be impressed by the FSA imposing this fine? It will be the poor UK taxpayer who picks up the tab(fine) anyway for this shambles of a bank. The banksters responsible for this fiasco have got clean away with the nations loot while crying tears of persecution. The RBS non-contributory final salary pension scheme, which I am led to believe is deep in the red, will now be funded by the uk taxpayer. the 10% (of salary) annual proft sharing bonus will now apparently also be paid, again at the expense of the U.K. taxpayer. Silly me I thought a business only paid out profit related bonuses when it made a profit and not the biggest loss in banking history. As A UK taxpayer and therefore part owner of this banking success story. could I also share in the bonus payouts. Meanwhile small businesses go bust and we all have been saddled with eye watering levels of debt that will take decades to pay off and lead to higher levels of taxation for us all. Still its good to know that some senior banksters can retire early on full pensions never needing to work again. As an IFA I will carry on with increased regulation, RDR,TCF,disclosure,level 4 qualification etc, etc. Finally, if I dare arrange for a client a £10pm LTA instead of an £8pm FIB without producing a booklet on my reasons why. May the FSA take me to a place of execution and hang me for the black hearted scoundrel and rogue that I am.
Posted by: Disgruntled IFA
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and the HR consequences were .......???
Amazing what goes on isn't it ? Do we know what happened to the offenders ? Moreso, do we know what the UBS Compliance Officers (i.e. those in place 2006 and 2007)now write on their CV's ..........most likely they moved on to better jobs elswhere and were not penalised !!
Posted by: Robert Wyatt