Morgan Stanley downplays AML scrutiny for wealth clients

Morgan Stanley said federal inquiries about its efforts to monitor the background of its wealth management clients aren’t new, and that the bank has already accounted for the costs of fixing its related processes.

“This is not a new matter. We’ve been focused on our client onboarding and monitoring processes for a good while,” chief executive Ted Pick said Tuesday on the first-quarter earnings call. “We have ongoing communications with our regulators, as all the large banks do.”

Morgan Stanley shares took a dive last week after a report in the Wall Street Journal that a number of US regulators are scrutinizing the firm’s efforts to prevent potential money laundering by wealthy clients. 

“This is about processes,” Pick said. “We have been spending time, effort and money for multiple years and it is ongoing. We’ve been on it. And the costs associated with this are largely in the expense run rate.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and other Treasury Department offices have been digging into whether the New York-based bank has done enough to investigate the identities of risky clients, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The Federal Reserve was already known to be looking into those controls last year.

The inquiries focus on a wealth management arm that has swelled into Morgan Stanley’s biggest business, generating almost half of the company’s revenue last year. The government has been ramping up pressure on the industry to tighten money-laundering controls as authorities make greater use of sanctions.

The bank has told regulators it’s improving controls and procedures and met with Federal Reserve officials to allay concerns last year.

Chief financial officer Sharon Yeshaya added on the call that the international portion of its wealth business is small and there has been minimal impact from the focus on its client monitoring processes.

“There are no strategic changes to our business,” she said. “No changes in our ability to do business.”