WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve announced Thursday that it had terminated four separate enforcement actions against JPMorgan Chase, Discover, Deutsche Bank and RBS.
The Fed’s cease and desist order against JPMorgan Chase stemmed from a referral hiring program in place from 2008 to 2013 in the bank’s Asia-Pacific region investment group. The Fed had said officials from foreign governments and prospective clients were found to have referred job candidates that were offered jobs, internships and training “in order to obtain improper business advantages.”
Those candidates, in most instances, were less qualified for those opportunities than candidates who had not been referred, according to the Fed’s 2016 enforcement action. The agency said JPMorgan Chase had since started a comprehensive compliance risk management program and evaluated its referral hiring practices.
The Fed also terminated an order against Deutsche Bank that was originally issued in April 2017 after the agency had found that Deutsche did not have appropriate measures in place to comply with the Volcker Rule, as well as a 2015 written agreement with Discover that had cited deficiencies in the company’s Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering compliance program.
The agency also ended a 2015 enforcement action against RBS that said the bank failed to ensure that its covered foreign exchange activities complied with safe and sound U.S. banking practices.
The Fed had said RBS didn’t have policies and procedures in places to address and identify unsafe and unsound practices by its foreign exchange traders, particularly communication among those traders in chatrooms with traders at other banks.
