CFTC orders UBS Financial Services to pay $8M for AML failures

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission slapped UBS AG and its subsidiaries with a $5 million civil monetary penalty on September 4, 2025, for what amounts to nearly a decade of failing to properly watch its own trades. UBS Financial Services Inc. and UBS Securities LLC were named alongside the parent company in an enforcement action covering violations stretching from at least 2015 through 2024. What went wrong at UBS The core problem was straightforward, even if the plumbing was complex. UBS relied on a third-party surveillance tool to monitor its trading activity across foreign exchange, precious metals, and credit products. That tool had significant deficiencies, including automatic data deletion after just 180 days and alert logic problems that meant suspicious activity could slip through undetected. The surveillance gaps weren’t limited to the faulty third-party tool. Additional blind spots affected client trades on ICE venues. UBS self-disclosed these additional gaps in February 2025, noting they represented less than 1% of the firm’s total flow on ICE platforms from 2018 to 2024. UBS launched what it called a Market Conduct Remediation Program in May 2023 and began transit...