China’s central bank ramped up its fight against money laundering and terrorist financing last year, imposing substantially higher fines than in 2017 and expanding its campaign into non-financial sectors.
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) doled out penalties totaling 189.3 million yuan ($27 million) for violations of money-laundering regulations in 2018, 41% more than the previous year, it said in a report (link in Chinese) released last week. Under Chinese law, money laundering carries a maximum one-off fine of 5 million yuan for a financial institution and 500,000 yuan for an individual.