Bank of England fines Citi £44m over reporting failures

Citigroup’s UK operations have been hit with a £44 million (€51.45 million) fine, the highest ever from the Bank of England (BoE), after it made “significant errors” in reporting its capital and liquidity positions over a four-year period.

Citi’s framework for reporting its capital and leverage was inadequate, with patchy documentation and without proper resourcing, leaving the BoE with an incomplete view of the Wall Street bank’s financial health, the BoE’s Prudential Regulation Authority said in a statement on Tuesday. The authority oversees the largest lenders and insurers in the UK.

Citi made a series of significant errors between 2014 and 2018, including “six substantive matters which had a material or potentially material impact on the returns,” according to the BoE, which added that the lender remained in surplus to its capital and liquidity requirements at all times.

Sam Woods, the authority’s chief executive, said: “Citi failed to deliver accurate returns and failed to meet the standards of governance and oversight of regulatory reporting which we expect of a systemically important bank.”

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Citi co-operated with the authority and settled at the earliest opportunity, therefore qualifying for a 30 per cent discount on a fine that would have otherwise been £63 million.

Combine fine

The combined fine was levied at three of its UK units: Citigroup Global Markets, Citibank NA London branch, and Citibank Europe Plc UK branch.

The US bank said in a statement: “Citi places a high priority on meeting its regulatory reporting requirements, and has devoted significant resources to UK financial reporting before, during and after the period to which the PRA’s notice relates.”

“The PRA acknowledges that Citi has made substantial strategic enhancements to its regulatory reporting infrastructure in the UK, and has also conducted a review of the systems and controls underpinning its regulatory reporting framework.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2019