Westpac Banking Corp. has lodged its defense to allegations that it breached money laundering laws more than 23 million times, addressing accusations that it failed to report about billions of dollars in international transfers in a timely way.

In a document filed in federal court on the afternoon of 15 May, the Australian bank admitted that it failed to report international fund transfers to Australia’s financial-intelligence agency, Austrac, and associated tracing failures. It also made admissions about record-keeping failures, ongoing due diligence failures; and failures regarding certain correspondent banking obligations.