In Touch Games fined £3.4m for customer care and AML failings  

In Touch Games fined £3.4m for customer care and AML failings  

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has taken regulatory action against multi-brand mobile casino operator In Touch Games Ltd, for failings on its social responsibility, money laundering and customer communications duties.

In Touch – which operates the mobile casino portfolio of MFortune, MrSpin, CashMo, PocketWin and SlotFactory.com – has been fined with regulatory penalties totalling £3.4 million.

The Commission has placed In Touch’s licence under review, ordering the operator to appoint independent auditors to undertake an assessment that the company is compliant with UK online gambling’s ‘Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP).

The penalty notice stated that In Touch had been charged with severe negligence with regards to its social responsibility duties on safeguarding customer interactions.

The UKGC stated that In Touch had failed to follow customer care policies and procedures for seven players who displayed behaviours that indicated problem gambling concerns. 

In Touch teams failed to use all relevant sources of information to safeguard and ensure effective decision making when interacting with the seven at-risk players.

“If the Licensee had followed its policy it should have given more consideration to placing mandatory limits on customer accounts,” the UKGC detailed in its assessment. 

AML failings pointed to In Touch neglecting its duties to conduct an ‘appropriate level of enhanced customer due diligence’ – with the Commission revealing that In Touch compliance teams failed to carry out player ‘source of fund’ reviews upon request.

The Commission expressed further concerns that In Touch had allowed customers to deposit using the payment services of a crypto-currencies exchange.

Further operator discrepancies were attached to In Touch’s customer communication failings in which SMS texts did not specify bonus deposit terms and further time-limited conditions.    

Richard Watson, Commission Executive Director, said: “Through our challenging compliance and enforcement activity we will continue our work to raise standards in the industry and continue to hold failing operators to account”. 


Source: SBC News