Australia's Westpac hit with record A$1.3bn fine over money laundering scandal

Westpac, one of Australia's largest banks, has agreed to pay a record-breaking penalty of A$1.3bn (£0.7bn) to settle the nation's biggest breach of money laundering laws. The penalty is a result of a court action last year from the financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC that accused Westpac of breaching its AML and counter terrorist financing (CTF) regulations more than 23 million times.Austrac also alleged that some of these breaches were linked to cases of child exploitation. If the billion-dollar fine is approved by a court, it will be the largest civil penalty in Australian corpora...