Tanzania's banking regulator has fined a group of banks, most of which have private banking operations, for bad know-your-customer controls.

The Central Bank of Tanzania has fined five banks for contravening articles 17, 22 and 28 Anti-Money Laundering Regulations 2012 by failing to verify information about customers' identities and for failing to submit information about fraudulent transactions to the Anti-Money Laundering Unit, the national financial intelligence unit or FIU. The banks are as follows.

• African Banking Corporation Ltd - 145 million shillings (US$63,100).
• Equity Bank (Tanzania) Ltd - 580 million shillings (US$252,400).
• I&M Bank - 655 million shillings (US$285,000).
• UBL Bank - 325 million shillings (US$141,430).
• Habib African Bank - 175 million shillings (US$76,145).

On top of these fines, the regulator has asked the banks to take the following steps in the next three-month period:

• review their customers' information and ensure that they meet the compliance requirements of the regulations governing the verification of customers' identities (KYC);
• evaluate the quality of their internal systems and take appropriate steps to ensure that they are effective enough to rule out the problems that the regulator detected; and
• take appropriate disciplinary action, punishing all employees involved in the process opening of deposit accounts in contravention of the regulator's KYC customer recognition principles.