Deutsche Bank has alerted financial regulators of potential breaches of EU sanctions rules involving Russian clients after discovering that its retail unit had accepted deposits of more than €100,000 from individuals subject to the bloc-wide prohibitions, the Financial Times reported.

The German lender found the cases after setting up a task force to review its controls following a February tightening of Germany’s sanctions enforcement regime, the newspaper said. The tougher rules, driven by an EU directive, introduced stricter criminal penalties, sped up enforcement, and ended grace periods, requiring banks to move more quickly to identify and block potentially prohibited transactions.

EU sanctions prohibit banks from accepting deposits above €100,000 from Russian nationals, residents, or entities established in Russia, the report said.

German prosecutors raided Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt headquarters in January as part of a separate money-laundering investigation linked to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, according to the FT. That investigation concerns the bank’s handling of transactions between 2013 and 2018 and whether it was too slow to file a suspicious activity report.

The probe focused on business ties to companies linked to Abramovich, according to a person familiar with the matter cited by the newspaper. 

Read more at the Financial Times