TD Bank taps HSBC Canada’s former chief compliance officer, sources say

By Nivedita Balu

TORONTO (Reuters) – TD Bank has hired Georgia Stavridis from Royal Bank of Canada to become a vice president in financial crimes risk management, a newly created role, three sources told Reuters.

She was appointed chief compliance officer for HSBC Bank Canada in 2020 and moved to RBC earlier this year after it acquired HSBC’s domestic unit for $10 billion.

Stavridis will be tasked with strategy, performance and results for the financial intelligence unit in Canada.

In October, TD Bank became the largest bank in U.S. history to plead guilty to violating a federal law aimed at preventing money laundering, and agreed to pay over $3 billion in penalties to resolve the charges.

As a part of the process to fix its compliance and risk program, TD hired a number of senior executives including Herb Mazariegos, its chief global anti-money-laundering officer from BMO, senior U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations and U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, Marcy Forman and Jacqueline Sanjuas from Citi, and several others.

In 2013, HSBC Holdings Plc (LON:HSBA) was fined $1.92 billion by federal and state investigators in the U.S. on charges it flouted rules designed to stop money laundering and thwart transactions with countries under U.S. sanctions.

Several HSBC executives have left RBC since a six-month guarantee to keep them expired in September.