Deutsche Bank Fined £160,000 for Russian Sanctions Breaches

Deutsche Bank has been fined £160,000 by the United Kingdom’s financial sanctions regulator for processing payments that breached sanctions imposed on Russia.

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), which operates as part of HM Treasury, issued the penalty after finding that the German multinational investment bank authorized two payments linked to a sanctioned Russian firm between June and July 2022.

The payments, which totaled £635,618.75, were sent from a Deutsche Bank customer to Okko, an operator of an online video platform. Okko is owned by JSC New Opportunities, a company subject to sanctions.

According to the OFSI, the breach occurred because Deutsche Bank utilized screening lists provided by a third party. These lists did not contain the necessary data regarding the ownership of Okko, which resulted in the transactions not being flagged as violations.

Sanctions Screening Requirements

The regulator stated that there were inherent risks in relying on an external party for sanctions screening and emphasized that the final responsibility for ensuring compliance rests with the financial institution.

This case underlines the importance of firms maintaining suitably robust sanctions screening systems and processes, commensurate with their level of exposure to sanctions risk.

Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI)

The OFSI further noted that while third-party tools are often a vital component of a firm’s control framework, institutions must recognize and account for the limitations of those tools by supplementing them with internal processes where necessary.

The investigation also identified another payment to Okko in April 2022 totaling £1.1 million. However, the OFSI did not classify this specific transaction as a breach because it occurred before the relevant sanction rules had come into effect.

Regulatory Landscape and Precedent

The OFSI described the UK sanctions imposed on Russia as a strategic priority that remains a focus for the regulator.

Approximately 20 companies have faced regulatory action for breaching these rules since 2019. The enforcement action against Deutsche Bank follows a similar penalty issued in January 2026 to a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group.

The Bank of Scotland was also fined £160,000 after it processed 24 payments, totaling £77,383, from a personal current account held by an individual under Russian sanctions. That case involved the opening of a bank account for an ally of Vladimir Putin.