Deutsche Bank Fined $41M for Money-Laundering Lapses

The bank's insufficient monitoring involved billions of dollars in "potentially suspicious transactions" processed between 2011 and 2015, the Fed said. The transactions involved affiliates in Europe that failed to provide "accurate and complete information," the regulator said.

While the Fed didn't disclose any specific transactions that were improper, Deutsche Bank has faced multiple investigations by various regulators into whether it allowed customers to engage in illicit trades. Deutsche Bank has recently reached settlements with the U.K. and New York State's Department of Financial Services over trades that allegedly helped wealthy Russians move some $10 billion out of the country.

The settlements involved what are known as mirror trades, in which bankers purchased Russian stocks in rubles while selling the same amount of shares in London.

The trades effectively converted rubles to dollars, and the cash flowed from the U.K. through Cyprus, Estonia and the U.S., investigators say. The deficiencies cited by the Fed include controls over transactions like mirror trades, said one person with knowledge of the matter.

In its settlement with the Fed, Deutsche Bank agreed to enlist an outside monitor to review transactions with international banks in the second half of 2016 — a time frame that could expand depending on the monitor's findings. The bank also agreed for the outside monitor to review its compliance with anti-money laundering laws.

The bank recently unveiled a drive to add 400 new people to its anti-money laundering unit this year, overseen by Chief Regulatory Officer Sylvie Matherat, which would boost the staff level by about 50 percent.

A settlement on the Russian mirror trades with the U.S. Department of Justice is still outstanding.