AUSTRAC accuses Westpac of filing & correspondent banking breaches; says monitoring flaws leave child exploitation risk off radar

Westpac Banking Corporation, Australia’s second largest bank by assets, faces allegations that “systemic failures” in its controls led to over 23 million breaches of the country’s Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006. Contraventions around customer due diligence and monitoring have prevented timely detection of child exploitation risk, according to court filings. [1]