CBK imposes KD250,000 in AML penalties on two banks and payment provider

The Central Bank of Kuwait (CBK) imposed financial penalties totalling KD250,000 on two local banks and an electronic payment and e-money service provider on 5 November 2026. The first bank received a KD10,000 penalty, the second bank received two penalties totalling KD40,000, and the payment provider received four financial penalties of KD50,000 each plus a “written warning”. The CBK Board of Directors imposed the measures after inspections of the entities' AML, counter-terrorist financing (CFT) and proliferation-financing controls.

The decisions invoke Article 15 of Law No. 106 of 2013 on combating money laundering and terrorist financing, as amended. This is completed supervisory enforcement, rather than a proposal or consultation. The notices identify the institutions by category rather than by name. They show that CBK inspections are testing compliance with both its own AML/CFT instructions and Kuwait's framework for implementing United Nations sanctions.

What the CBK cited

The first bank was fined for a repeated violation of Article Thirteenth/1 of the CBK's instructions dated 16 February 2023 on combating money laundering and terrorist financing. The CBK describes the penalty as resulting from an inspection focused on compliance with AML, CFT and measures against financing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The second bank's two penalties were imposed for violations of the provisions labelled Sixth/4 and Ninth/1, paragraph 4(C), (E) and (F), in the same 16 February 2023 instructions.

The payment provider's notice cites five categories of breach under instructions dated 5 July 2023:

- violation of Clause First;
- violation of Clause Fifth;
- violation of Clause Sixth;
- a repeated violation of Article 6 of Clause Seventh; and
- violation of a CBK circular dated 26 March 2025 concerning Ministerial Resolution No. 8 of 2025.

That circular concerned the executive regulation for implementing United Nations Security Council resolutions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter on terrorism and proliferation financing. The notice says the circular was later repealed by Resolution No. 176 of 2025.

The first bank and payment provider were both cited for repeat violations, providing the clearest escalation signal in the notices.

A wider enforcement sequence

The action follows a concentrated run of CBK enforcement against supervised financial institutions. Atlas's records show that an exchange company received three financial penalties totalling KD40,000 on 4 November for AML/CFT breaches. On 29 October, the CBK imposed penalties on a local bank, a foreign bank branch and exchange companies over AML/CFT violations. It had also penalised exchange companies on 25 October.

Atlas reads the sequence as a supervisory signal across the payment chain, rather than a focus on one institution type. Banks, foreign branches, exchange companies and payment providers have all appeared in recent CBK enforcement, while the latest notices add proliferation-financing and UN sanctions implementation to the control areas being examined.

For supervised firms, the practical lesson is that CBK's inspection scope includes compliance with dated CBK instructions, repeated deficiencies and the implementation of Chapter VII sanctions measures. The central bank said the enforcement is intended to secure compliance with applicable laws, regulations and standards, and to protect the transparency and integrity of Kuwait's financial system.