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Source: http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,24855356-462,00.html

ANZ is facing a $US20 million ($A29 million) fine for failing to comply with US economic sanctions and anti-money laundering standards.
The pending fine relates to more than $US50 million of suspect financial transactions that were identified during an internal audit of offshore cash transfers involving the bank's New York branch and its subsidiary in American Samoa, reports the Herald Sun.

ANZ is yet to incur penalties for the breaches that were disclosed to the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in February last year.

However, sources close to the OFAC investigation into the New York branch say that ANZ will be asked to pay its fine in the first half of 2009.

"The talk is that the Treasury Department will be looking to impose a big fine in view of the fact that the credit crisis has burnt a big hole in its coffers," a source told BusinessDaily.

"It looks like ANZ will be hit with a very substantial fine."

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More than $1 billion was wiped from the bank's bottom line in 2008 after it was forced to absorb losses from the Opes Prime affair and a complex derivative exposure that went awry.

An internal audit of ANZ's banking practices in February last year identified 42 cases of non-compliance with US economic sanctions.

The Herald Sun's BusinessDaily believes several of breaches relate to the AWB scandal where the national wheat marketer paid cash to the regime of Saddam Hussein in return for access to the Iraq market.

ANZ spokesman Paul Edwards said the bank had voluntarily disclosed details of the breaches concerning Cuba, Sudan and Iran to US financial regulators.

"The transactions do not involve breaches of Australian or United Nations economic sanctions," Mr Edwards said.

Banks operating in the US are expected to comply with trade sanctions covering banks and individuals in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Zimbabwe and Cuba.

NAB copped a $100,000 fine in September 2007 after it admitted to violations of US trade sanctions for Burma, Cuba and Sudan.

The suspect NAB transactions were also processed through its New York office, but the eventual fine was reduced after the bank agreed to upgrade its global compliance policies