Multiple federal regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and other Treasury Department offices are probing Morgan Stanley over how it vets clients who are at risk of laundering money through the bank’s sprawling wealth-management division. Regulators are determining whether Morgan Stanley sufficiently investigated the identities and sources of wealth of prospective clients. Also, how the bank monitors its clients’ financial activity. The SEC and the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) sent Morgan Stanley a list of client names with questions about the bank’s vetting process. Morgan Stanley’s wealth division accounts for about half of the bank’s total revenue and uses it to smooth out downturns in investment banking and trading.
Morgan Stanley’s Wealth Division Probed
