SETTING OUT its enforcement priorities for 2012, the Central Bank mentioned 10 areas where regulated entities and their management “can expect vigorous investigation and follow-up” where serious regulatory breaches occur.

In addition to mortgage arrears, the Central Bank will consider enforcement action in the areas of retail intermediaries, payment protection insurance, client asset requirements, prudential requirements and transaction reporting.

It will take action on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing, systems and controls, timeliness and accuracy of information submitted to the Central Bank, and dissemination of inaccurate or incorrect information to the market.

The Central Bank said it had set aside a proportion of its resources for “reactive” enforcement of issues identified in its day-to-day supervisory work, and from other information sources.

Peter Oakes, the Central Bank’s director of enforcement, said enforcement action and the publicity it attracted had a “powerful impact” on deterring non-compliance and on educating behaviour.

The regulator reached enforcement settlements with 10 regulated entities last year and imposed fines of €5.05 million, including the largest fine to date of €3.35 million, which the Combined Insurance Company of Ireland was ordered to pay for 28 regulatory breaches over five years.

The Central Bank has been criticised for its inspections of Dublin investment firm Custom House Capital, which was investigated by the regulator in 2009 but later found to have misused €66 million of client funds to cover losses on property. Investigations are continuing into the scale of losses at the liquidated investment firm.