Foreign banks in Korea advised to take anti-money-laundering

South Korea's financial regulator said Wednesday it has advised some foreign banks here to take steps to guard against money laundering activities.

After an inspection of 37 branches of foreign banks in the country, the Financial Supervisory Service concluded that some small-scale branches showed a lack of awareness of money laundering.

The FSS said, however, most branches had anti-money-laundering safeguards in place. It did not identify the vulnerable branches by name.

The vulnerable branches did not have enough staff or a system in place to verify whether a customer's money is honest or not, the FSS said.

They were also not properly reporting financial transaction-related information to Korean financial authorities, it said. (Yonhap)