The Royal Bank of Scotland has been hit with further fines totalling £62million, this time for busting US sanctions regulations in Burma, Cuba, Iran and Sudan.
Last night, the US Federal Reserve Board said it had slapped the bank with a £31million fine and a “cease-and-desist” order over “unsafe and unsound” practices.
It accused RBS of “insufficient oversight” of its US dollar clearing practices and economic sanctions-compliance programs.
RBS had to pay a second £31million fine to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS).
A third £20million penalty levied by the Office of Foreign Assets Control was satisfied by the Fed’s charge.
The news broke as the board of the Edinburgh-based bank hosted a reception at an art gallery in the city.
In a statement, the bank said it “acknowledges and deeply regrets these failings”.
It added that it had committed to spending £300million since 2010 to strengthen its sanctions control.
The fines were the second hit for the bank yesterday after it confirmed the surprise departure of finance director Nathan Bostock.
RBS shares fell almost 3% to 326.90p after the “integral” Mr Bostock accepted a role with rival Santander UK just two months after he began his current RBS posting.
The development came only weeks after RBS unveiled plans to carve out an internal “bad bank” of £38billion problem assets.
It caps the latest turbulent period for the 80% state-owned bank, which in recent weeks has faced serious allegations over the way it has dealt with distressed business customers, as well as the latest in a series of IT meltdowns that left customers with no access to their cash.
The US fines were announced after markets closed last night.
Lloyds Banking Group also faced the music yesterday after it was fined £28million over incentive schemes that rewarded staff with “champagne bonuses” and put advisers under pressure to hit sales targets or face demotion.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was the highest penalty yet imposed against a UK retail banking operation.
The authority said the penalty was imposed after it uncovered “serious failings” in bonus schemes within Lloyds TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland (BoS) that saw frontline staff pick up windfalls, even when the products were mis-sold to customers.
Shares in Lloyds, which has signalled it will be in a position to pay dividends in the new year, fell 1% to 77.38p.
But analysts dismissed the bad practices as historical and the fine as “a rounding error” when compared to the £9billion Lloyds had set aside “for an array of conduct issues over the past three years”.