WELLINGTON, Dec 15 (Reuters) - New Zealand's central bank said on Monday it had filed civil proceedings against ASB Bank Ltd for breaches of core requirements under the anti-money laundering and countering financing of terrorism rules.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said in a statement ASB, owned by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX) , opens new tab, has co-operated with the RBNZ and has admitted liability for all seven causes of action.

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ASB Chief Executive Vittoria Shortt said the bank's transaction monitoring and customer due diligence systems and processes had shortcomings, and it did not act fast enough to resolve these.

"We didn’t get this right and I apologise for that," she said. “We cleared all backlogs of transaction monitoring alerts by February 2024. We have uplifted, and continue to uplift, our processes to improve our AML-CFT capability.”

Acting Assistant Governor of Financial Stability Angus McGregor said this action is an important reminder to industry that serious non-compliance with the act is unacceptable.

The act "has been in place for well over a decade now and the Reserve Bank expects banks to have the systems and resources in place to be fully compliant with these requirement," he said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/nz-central-bank-cuts-cash-rate-by-25-bps-225-2025-11-26/