Credit Suisse, the Swiss bank now owned by UBS, has been ordered to pay a civil penalty of $3.9 million by Singapore’s financial watchdog, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), for failing to prevent or detect misconduct by its relationship managers in the country.
Credit Suisse Fined $3.9 Million by Singapore for Relationship Managers Misconduct
According to the MAS, the relationship managers provided clients with inaccurate or incomplete post-trade disclosures, resulting in their clients being charged spreads above the bilaterally agreed rates for 39 over-the-counter (OTC) bond transactions.
For the 39 transactions, MAS stated that Credit Suisse’s relationship managers made false statements to their clients regarding the executed interbank prices and/or spreads charged, as well as not providing information that the spreads charged were above the agreed rates.
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Investigations conducted by Singapore’s financial watchdog found the bank failed to implement adequate controls, such as post-trade monitoring, to prevent or detect the relationship managers’ misconduct. However, they state that Credit Suisse has since strengthened its internal controls.
Credit Suisse, as part of the civil penalty settlement, also separately compensated its affected clients.
“Financial institutions should implement robust governance frameworks and processes to ensure fair and transparent pricing to their customers,” said Ms Ho Hern Shin, Deputy Managing Director (Financial Supervision) at MAS. “We will continue to engage the banks to improve their controls in this area and will not hesitate to take firm enforcement action against financial institutions found to have breached our laws.”
