CBUAE fined two foreign bank branches Dh18.1m after examinations exposed AML control gaps

On 28 May 2025 the Central Bank of the UAE announced financial sanctions totalling Dh18.1 million (about $5 million) on two UAE branches of foreign banks for violations of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulations. One branch was fined Dh10.6 million, the other Dh7.5 million. Neither institution was named, but the central bank said supervisory examinations had revealed the branches failed to comply with the UAE's AML legal framework and related regulatory requirements.

The penalties were issued under the UAE's federal law on money laundering and the financing of terrorism and illegal organisations. The regulator framed the action as routine supervision: it 'endeavors to ensure that all banks and their staff abide by the UAE laws, regulations and standards established by the CBUAE to maintain transparency and integrity of the financial transactions and safeguard the UAE financial system.' For international banks, the message is that a branch in Dubai or Abu Dhabi is examined against local standards, however strong the group's global framework looks on paper.

The timing was no accident. A week earlier the same regulator had fined a UAE exchange house a landmark Dh200 million for serious AML and terrorism-financing failings, fining its branch manager Dh500,000 and banning him from working in any licensed financial institution in the UAE. The UAE had been placed on the FATF grey list in 2022 over concerns about its AML regime, and was removed in 2024 after strengthening its standards — enforcement tempo stayed high well after the delisting.

Dh18.1 million (about $5 million) in combined fines: Dh10.6 million for one branch, Dh7.5 million for the other.

Branches of foreign banks often run on the parent's compliance architecture, but UAE AML and counter-terrorism financing obligations attach to the local licence separately.

The failures were found by the CBUAE's own examinations, which means the branches' internal monitoring and reporting never surfaced them first.

Coming a week after a Dh200 million exchange-house fine, the sanctions showed the supervisor had moved past warnings to structural penalties across every licence category.

A branch licence is not an extension of head office's compliance programme. Host-country AML rules apply separately, and the supervisor's examination — not your own monitoring — finds the gap first.

The central bank published the sanctions in a statement but did not name the banks, disclose the underlying examination findings, or say whether further measures would follow. The fines landed while the UAE was still consolidating the reforms that took it off the FATF grey list in 2024, and a week after the Dh200 million exchange-house penalty showed individuals as well as institutions were in scope. For foreign bank branches operating in the Gulf, the case added Dh18.1 million to the price of treating local AML obligations as someone else's problem.