Deutsche Bank London Fined £165,000 for Russia Sanctions Breach

Deutsche Bank's London branch has been fined £165,000 by a UK financial regulator for processing payments that breached sanctions against Russia. The penalty was announced by the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), a unit of HM Treasury.

The regulator stated that the German bank processed two payments on behalf of a customer in June and July 2022, totalling £635,618.75. The funds were sent to Okko, a Russian online video streaming service. At the time of the transactions, Okko was owned by JSC New Opportunities, a company that had been placed under UK sanctions in June 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

According to the OFSI, Deutsche Bank was using screening lists from a third-party provider that did not include data on Okko's ownership, and therefore failed to flag the breach. The regulator emphasized that while third-party tools can be part of a compliance framework, the bank remained ultimately responsible for ensuring adherence to sanctions rules when processing customer payments.

The bank voluntarily disclosed the Okko payments to the OFSI, which qualified it for a discount on the financial penalty. A Deutsche Bank spokesperson said that after...