For contravening various rules, including late remittance of funds under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) guiding the Nigerian banking industry, eight banks last year paid a total fine of N3.323 billion.

Of the eight banks that have released their full financial statements for the year ended December, First City Monument Bank had paid a total fine of N177.09 million; Fidelity Bank paid N44.5 million; Guaranty Trust Bank paid N6.05 million; Sterling Bank paid N13 million; United Bank for Africa paid NN2.968 billion; Union Bank paid N46.28 million while Wema Bank and Zenith Bank paid N8.087 million and N60.1 million respectively.

It will be recalled that having defaulted the September 15 deadline, UBA, one of the three banks fined by the apex bank had paid N2.946 billion for failure to fully remit funds to the TSA within the deadline. The bank also paid N6.8 million for failure to capture two persons as politically exposed persons and N6 million each for late update of customer files and reporting offshore subsidiary.

FCMB was fined N126 million for failure to carry out due diligence and non rendition of suspicious transactions report (STR) in respect of customer. It was also fined N25 million for foreign exchange sales infractions to bureau de change with total infractions of the bank numbering 11.

Zenith Bank was last year fined for nine infractions the largest of which was N32 million as penalty in relation to reporting of public sector deposit. It was also fined N10 million for fraudulent NIBBS instant pay (NIP) from account in Enterprise Bank to the Valluci Properties Limited.

Union Bank had committed eight infractions with the largest fine it paid being N18 million as penalty in respect of public sector funds and N14 million for non-compliance with CBN guidelines for appointments of staff to top management positions.

Fidelity Bank had paid N44.5 million as fines for eight infractions with the largest fine it paid being N28 million as penalty payment on CBN FINA returns. With a total of four infractions Sterling Bank had been fined for not complying with deadline for transfer of funds to TSA as well as delay in response to CBN Directive in respect of reporting lines of the Chief Compliance Officer amongst others.

Union Bank had also been penalized for not rendering returns on Anti Money Laundering & Financing Terrorism, granting Loans without BVN and for failure to meet TSA deadline.

Guaranty Trust Bank on its own part had been fined for delay in transmitting list of TSA names to the CBN, late rendition of returns and contravention of CBN circular on prior clearance of prospective employees of banks.

United Bank for Africa Plc paid the highest fine as it was one of the three banks that were sanctioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria for contravening the TSA directive.