Tigress Financial Partners has been fined $100,000 by FINRA after the regulator found deficiencies in its anti-money laundering (AML) compliance programme and failures to disclose required information on customer trade confirmations.
Tigress Financial Partners Fined by FINRA
According to FINRA’s disciplinary notice, posted on Thursday, Tigress onboarded hundreds of high-risk foreign customers between 2018 and 2022, but failed to implement adequate AML procedures to monitor and report suspicious transactions.
Furthermore, the regulator says the firm did not tailor its compliance programme to its evolving customer base, which accounted for a majority of its revenue.
As a result, potentially suspicious trading activity is said to have went undetected, including unusual transaction patterns involving shell companies and large cross-border transfers.
Additionally, from May 2018 to May 2020, FINRA says Tigress failed to disclose mark-ups and mark-downs on over 2,000 customer confirmations and did not have adequate supervisory systems in place to ensure compliance with FINRA Rule 2232.
The firm reportedly relied on a manual trade review process that was insufficient given its growing trading volumes.
In settling the charges, Tigress did not admit or deny FINRA’s findings but agreed to a censure and monetary penalty. FINRA stated that the firm has since updated its AML procedures and strengthened its compliance framework.
