Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) announced that it has imposed a RM600,000 penalty on TNG Digital, the owner and operator of Touch ‘n Go eWallet, for failing to screen its customers against sanctions lists.

The penalties were issued as BNM found this to breach of the Financial Services Act 2013 (FSA) and the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations.

Alan Ni, CEO of TNG Digital came forward to say that this was uncovered during its “internal compliance review a while back” where the firm had allowed two individuals on the sanction list to sign up as users.

“Even these 2 cases happened more than 3 years ago, and the transaction amounts by them were very small at hundreds of RM. But when it comes to “sanction list”, the small sum doesn’t take away the gravity of the matter, given that they shouldn’t have been onboarded at all,”

he said in a LinkedIn post.

Following this discovery, Alan added that TNG had reported the two cases to BNM as well as thoroughly reviewed and improved its internal processes and systems to prevent this from happening again.

“People often say “do the right thing”, but sometimes, doing the right thing can be tough, especially when the stakes are high. 600K fine seems high, but it was actually already reduced significantly with consideration to above factors. For that we are grateful to BNM and will do our utmost best to adhere to highest standard,”

he added.

According to BNM, the RM600,000 penalty was determined based on various factors that also took into account the remedial actions taken by TNG to address the non-compliance issues.

Besides TNG Digital, BNM had also imposed penalties of RM260,000 and RM134,400 MPI Generali Insurans Berhad (MPGB) and Mandiri International (MISB) respectively for similar non-compliances.

All three entities have paid the penalties imposed on them.