In just over four months, two Swiss private banks have had to quit Singapore for regulatory lapses.

In little over four months, two Switzerland-headquartered private banks have been told by Singapore’s principal regulator to get out of town. Serious lapses in anti-money laundering controls have seen BSI Singapore and Falcon Private Bank booted out of the city-state.

The private banking industry has been on tenterhooks waiting for the Monetary Authority of Singapore to act; a few weeks ago, the watchdog said its investigations around Malaysia-linked transactions had unearthed failings at Falcon, as well as UBS, DBS and as discussed recently here. The scandal around allegedly dirty money flows from Malaysia’s 1MDB is potentially damaging, although Singapore is by no means the only jurisdiction affected – Switzerland, Luxembourg and the US have become involved. In Switzerland, for example, bank accounts linked to the affair have been frozen.

Ironically, Falcon’s name was mentioned to your correspondent recently by industry sources as a potential buyer of other Asia-based private banks as it seeks to gain scale, and as some banks look to offload non-core business. There is press speculation, for example, that ABN AMRO, the Dutch bank, is preparing to spin off its private bank in Asia. (That bank has declined to comment.) Falcon might, in happier circumstances, have been a suitor.

Falcon, which is owned by UAE-based International Petroleum Investment Company, joins a number of foreign-owned banks that in very different circumstances have shipped out of Singapore. Societe Generale and Barclays sold their Singapore-based private banks to local players; BSI has been told to leave the city-state and now Falcon has had to do the same. Despite all those comments about the ascent of wealth in Asia, the region has not proved a happy hunting ground for some foreign banks, and in the case of BSI and Falcon, they have the unenviable reputation of being shown the door for regulatory lapses.

There can be little doubt that the war against illicit money is not going away and the sooner that banks and other financial players live up to their commitments to run compliant businesses, the better.