BoE hands Citi record fine over UK reporting breaches

The Bank of England on Tuesday said it has handed US banking giant Citigroup a record fine of almost £44 million ($57 million, 51 million euros) for "serious and widespread" reporting breaches.

The British central bank said in a statement that its Prudential Regulation Authority division has given the penalty to Citigroup for "failings in their regulatory reporting governance and controls".

"The PRA has imposed a combined financial penalty on Citigroup Global Markets Limited (CGML), Citibank N.A. London branch (CBNA London) and Citibank Europe Plc UK branch (CEP UK) of £43.9 million for failings in relation to their internal controls and governance arrangements underpinning compliance with PRA regulatory reporting requirements," the watchdog said.

The PRA added that Citigroup's UK reporting framework was not designed, implemented or operating effectively between June 2014 and December 2018, or for parts of that period.

"This led to them failing to submit complete and accurate regulatory returns to the PRA," it added.

"While Citi remained in surplus to its liquidity and capital requirements at all times, the failings persisted over a significant length of time and were serious and widespread in nature. "They led to significant errors in the firms' returns, including six substantive matters which had a material or potentially material impact on the returns.

"This meant the returns submitted were unreliable and did not provide the PRA with an accurate picture of CGML's capital or liquidity position."

Sam Woods, deputy governor for prudential regulation and head of the PRA, added that Citigroup had "failed" to meet the standards expected of a "systemically important bank".

The US bank agreed to resolve the matter swiftly and therefore qualified for a 30-percent discount. Without this action, the fine would have stood at £62.7 million.

In response, Citi said in a separate statement that it has since conducted a major review and made "substantial strategic enhancements" to its UK regulatory reporting infrastructure. It added an independent audit firm had concluded that the problems had been resolved.