Banco Santander has been fined more than €40 million by Spain’s anti-money laundering (AML) watchdog Sepblac for past shortcomings in internal processes at its digital unit Openbank, Bloomberg reported. 

The penalty is among the largest-ever imposed by Sepblac and the amount was calculated based on Santander’s size rather than the seriousness of the underlying events, the news outlet said. The enforcement action relates to issues in Openbank’s Spanish business “dating back some years” that have since been resolved, a Santander spokesperson said in the report. 

“It is unrelated to any money laundering case and concerns interpretive matters regarding procedural and control rules, in particular regarding inactive customer accounts that were either blocked or not operational,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg. 

Santander has launched Openbank in six countries, including the United States, and the lender announced in November it would merge Openbank and its European Consumer Finance unit into a single legal entity, both housed within Santander’s Digital Consumer Bank division, according to the report. 

The fine follows the announcement last month that Santander had agreed to pay €22.5 million ($26.18 million) to settle a long-running tax fraud case in France, bringing to a close an investigation that began more than a decade earlier.

Sepblac has recently imposed penalties totaling more than €30 million on CaixaBank, the news agency said. 

Read more at Bloomberg