Airbnb Payments Enters Settlement with OFAC Over Cuba Sanction Violations

Airbnb’s (ABNB) subsidiary Airbnb Payments has entered into a settlement with the U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and agreed to pay a penalty of $91,172.29 for violating sanctions against Cuba.

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The company conducted a review of transactions between September 28, 2015, and March 1, 2020, which showed that payments related to 3,464 stays in Cuba were processed in which the guests travelled for reasons outside of OFAC’s 12 authorized categories.

Further, Airbnb Payments processed payments related to 3,076 transactions in which it failed to keep records in accordance with the OFAC’s regulations. Another 44 transactions involved non-U.S. persons engaging in Cuba travel transactions on Airbnb’s platform prior to OFAC issuing the specific license to the company.

OFAC said, “The settlement amount reflects OFAC’s determination that Airbnb Payments’ apparent violations were voluntarily self-disclosed and were non-egregious.”

Stock Rating

Last month, RBC Capital analyst Brad Erickson downgraded Airbnb’s rating to Hold from Buy with a price target of $175 (1.3% upside potential).

Based on 10 Buys, 14 Holds and 1 Sell, the stock has a Moderate Buy consensus rating. The Airbnb stock price prediction of $197.17 implies 14.2% upside potential from current levels. Shares have gained 16.4% over the past year.

Website Traffic

TipRanks’ Website Traffic tool, which uses data from SEMrush Holdings (SEMR), the world’s biggest website usage monitoring service, offers insight into Airbnb’s performance.

According to the tool, in November, the website of Airbnb recorded a 6.3% monthly increase in global unique visits, compared to the previous year. Likewise, year-to-date website traffic has grown 9.7% against the same period last year.

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