The Central Bank has fined a credit union over its failure to comply with  money laundering and terrorist financing laws.

The Community Credit Union Limited received a €21,000 fine for breaching regulations.

The Central Bank's director of enforcement Peter Oakes said it was the first sanction against a credit union for such a breach, and followed inspections in all regulated sectors of the financial services industry to monitor compliance with the regulations.

"Credit unions have an important role to play in the financial services sector, providing services to credit union members throughout the country, and savings under management of almost €12 billion," he said. "They therefore play an integral part in efforts to prevent the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering and terrorist financing."

Mr Oakes said firms must also maintain awareness at board level of the need to continually review the appropriateness of their risk-based anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing measures,

The money laundering and terrorist financing laws came into force in July 2010.