ACPR fines Crédit Agricole du Languedoc €1.5m over gaps in automated monitoring found with its AI tool

What happened?

The ACPR inspected the Caisse régionale de Crédit Agricole Mutuel du Languedoc (CRCAM Languedoc) from 29 June 2020 to 15 January 2021. The regional bank, part of the Crédit Agricole group, had about 2,700 staff and about one million customers in the Aude, Gard, Hérault and Lozère départements, where its market share exceeded 30%. On 15 October 2021 the ACPR's supervisory college opened disciplinary proceedings on the basis of the inspection report.[1]

Per the decision, the inspection was the first ACPR on-site inspection to use LUCIA ("Logiciel à l'Usage du Contrôle assisté par l'Intelligence Artificielle"), the supervisor's AI tool, after the bank transferred 540 GB of data covering 750 million payment transactions made by customers between January 2018 and June 2020. The bank argued it had not been told in time how the data would be used and that the tool's use was disproportionate and harmed its rights of defence. The committee rejected the argument, holding that inspectors "ne sont pas tenus de faire connaître aux organismes contrôlés les caractéristiques des logiciels qu'ils peuvent être, le cas échéant, conduits à utiliser" ("are not required to disclose to the inspected institutions the characteristics of the software they may use"; our translation).[1][3]

On the monitoring complaint (grief 2), the committee found that a group scenario applied without adaptation, S03, detected only weekly cash deposits by individuals above €14,000 and above five times the previous three-month average, whereas average deposits were between €400 and €700; per the inspectors it excluded 90% of non-professional account holders. No scenario was adapted to small payments that could relate to terrorist financing, and none tracked consistency between customers' known income and the credits to their accounts. The committee said human vigilance could only complement the alerts of an automated system in a bank of this size. A separate complaint about a cheque scenario, S17, was dismissed because the bank had tested it for two months in 2018 and then dropped it.[1]

The committee concluded: "le dispositif de suivi et d'analyse des opérations de la clientèle de la CRCAM Languedoc reposait sur un ensemble de scénarios incomplet, ce qui ne la mettait pas en mesure de détecter certains types d'opérations atypiques" ("the system for monitoring and analysing customers' transactions rested on an incomplete set of scenarios, which did not enable it to detect certain types of atypical transactions"; our translation). It also upheld know-your-customer gaps, 17 failures to carry out enhanced reviews and 9 failures to file suspicious-activity reports with Tracfin, but treated these as isolated failings. It said the improvements expected from the bank's new AI-based detection tool did not change the finding.[1][2]

When did it happen?

1. Jun 29, 2020

   The ACPR begins an on-site inspection of CRCAM Languedoc, using its AI tool LUCIA for the first time on such an inspection; the inspection runs to 15 January 2021.[1]

2. Oct 15, 2021

   The ACPR supervisory college decides to open disciplinary proceedings against the bank.[1]

3. Nov 14, 2022

   Public hearing before the sanctions committee; the college's representative seeks a reprimand and a €2 million fine.[1]

4. Dec 1, 2022

   The sanctions committee issues a reprimand and a €1.5 million fine and orders publication under the bank's name for five years.[1]

5. Dec 7, 2022

   The ACPR publishes the decision and a press release.[2]

What was the impact?

• Financial: €1.5 million fine and a reprimand[1][2]
• Customers: No customer loss reported; the decision does not quantify the transactions the scenarios missed.[1][2]
• Other: The regulator found a significant failure of a component of the bank's anti-money-laundering system, illustrated by individual files that should have led to enhanced reviews or reports to Tracfin.[1][2]

Severity 3 of 5: A regulatory finding with a reprimand and a €1.5 million fine: the regulator found a significant failure in the bank's automated transaction monitoring that left certain atypical transactions undetected; no customer loss was reported.

How did Caisse régionale de Crédit Agricole Mutuel du Languedoc respond?

Before the committee the bank argued that the way LUCIA was used made the procedure irregular, stressed the "caractère inédit et disproportionné" (unprecedented and disproportionate nature) of the means LUCIA used, said the shortcomings found were marginal in light of those means, cited its anti-money-laundering remediation (more financial-security staff and an early role in a group financial-crime detection programme using innovative technologies) and asked for the decision to be published anonymously or not at all. We found no separate public statement by the bank as of 2026-10-21 (searched the ACPR site, French and trade press, and the bank's website).[1]

What was the outcome, and did regulators act?

The committee imposed a reprimand and a €1.5 million fine, less than the €2 million sought, and ordered the decision published in the ACPR register under the bank's name for five years. The decision could be appealed within two months; as of 2026-10-21 we found no published appeal ruling.[1][2]

1. Décision de la Commission des sanctions, procédure n° 2021-05, Caisse régionale de Crédit Agricole Mutuel du Languedoc official
   ACPR Commission des sanctions · Dec 7, 2022
   “Il résulte de tout ce qui précède qu’au moment du contrôle sur place, le dispositif de suivi et d’analyse des opérations de la clientèle de la CRCAM Languedoc reposait sur un ensemble de scénarios incomplet, ce qui ne la mettait pas en mesure de détecter certains types d’opérations atypiques (grief 2).”
2. La Commission des sanctions de l’ACPR sanctionne la Caisse régionale de Crédit agricole mutuel du Languedoc official
   Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) · Dec 7, 2022
   “Par une décision du 1er décembre 2022, la Commission des sanctions de l’ACPR a prononcé un blâme et une sanction pécuniaire de 1,5 million d’euros à l’encontre de la Caisse régionale de Crédit agricole mutuel du Languedoc (CRCAM Languedoc).”
3. France Fines Credit Agricole After Analyzing 750 Million Transactions Using AI news
   ACAMS moneylaundering.com · Dec 8, 2022
   “France's financial regulator fined Credit Agricole €1.5 million for anti-money laundering violations in its first enforcement action stemming from the use of an artificial intelligence tool that allowed examiners to analyze hundreds of millions of the bank's transactions and other data.”