Rabobank management allegedly knew about money laundering for years

Rabobank has allegedly been aware for the past eight years that its approach to money laundering was inadequate. An internal audit in 2014 failed most of the bank's local offices for poorly screening money laundering risks, years before the bank came clean publicly, NRC reports.

Although the bank announced in early 2019 that it had been fined by Dutch central bank DNB for insufficiently screening thousands of customers, reporting by NRC reveals the problem went back much further in time. The 2014 audit prompted intense discussions between Rabobank's head and regulator DNB.

It seems DNB ordered the bank to re-screen more than 100,000 customers who had incorrectly been assigned to a low-risk category for money laundering. There is still a backlog of customers who have yet to be assigned and possible money laundering transactions that need to be reported, according to NRC.

DNB announced in November 2021 that it had started a criminal procedure against Rabobank. In response, Rabobank announced early this year that it would allocate an additional 249 million euros to improve its anti-money laundering policy.