Two Firms Agree to Pay After FINRA Alleges Flaws in Their Anti-Money Laundering Efforts

Two firms have agreed to be fined a total of $750,000 by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority for having inadequate anti-money laundering programs, failing to verify client identities, not detecting and reporting suspicious activity, and other alleged offenses.

In a Feb. 2 statement, FINRA, a self-regulatory organization, identified the firms as Dallas-based Penson Financial Services and Raleigh, N.C.-based Pinnacle Capital Markets. In the first case, FINRA claimed that the firm should have been alerted by high-risk penny stock deposits and liquidations, while in the second, the firm failed to identify customers from “high risk jurisdictions,” including Luxembourg and Latvia.

Being ...