According to a new report from Finance Magnates, South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has started an investigation into the local bank's foreign exchange records after receiving reports of suspicious activity at a branch of Woori Bank.
Citing a report from local media outlet The Korea Times, the Woori Bank branch lost 800 billion won ($616 million) in activity last year. The bank's activities began to raise suspicions after it was discovered that one branch had foreign exchange transactions that were more than 145 times the average.
Bank reports suspicious transactions to FSS
After conducting an internal audit, Woori Bank reported the suspicious foreign exchange transaction records to the Korean financial authorities. Soon after receiving the report, the Korean regulator took immediate action and conducted an on-site investigation at the bank.
As unusual levels of foreign exchange transactions were detected at some banks, an FSS spokesperson said, “All banks were urged to conduct internal investigations at their various branches to ensure that there were no violations of trading activities. ”
Meanwhile, the regulator also investigated Shinhan Bank, which reported similar extremely high levels of foreign exchange trading activity at one of its branches. In addition to investigating any cases of violations of foreign exchange trading and anti-money laundering laws, the regulator also required other banks to conduct internal checks. If any violations of the banks' foreign exchange trading activities are found, the regulator may impose fines on the banks that fail to conduct the checks.
The investigation is still underway
The FSS said it has begun an investigation into the matter, and an on-site inspection was conducted on June 23 in response to the report. The main focus of the investigation is to find out whether the bank violated any provisions of the anti-money laundering law. The regulator also said it would conduct a more comprehensive investigation to identify the source of the transactions.
Some believe that many of the suspicious transactions may be part of money laundering activities related to cryptocurrencies. But Woori Bank said it has no concrete evidence to support such claims.
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