Italian prosecutors seize $10.5 billion from one of Europe's wealthiest families, a judge questions HSBC's agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, and more, in this week's news roundup.
Poor anti-money laundering controls on affiliates and problematic oversight allowed a global bank to process tens of trillions of dollars with little to no compliance checks, according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
Financial intelligence units sometimes fail to set out concrete goals and metrics to measure performance, including tracking the number of money launderers convicted, terrorist attacks thwarted and amount of assets seized, according to author Jayesh D'Souza.
An effort by the country's financial intelligence unit to take ownership of Bank Secrecy Act data managed by the IRS appears to be on track, according to industry observers and the U.S. Treasury Department.
The U.S. Treasury Department should alter or abandon its plan to collect data on cross-border transactions made through banks and money remitters, in part because of potential data management issues, say banking groups.
The U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit will unveil details in January of its Bank Secrecy Act database overhaul scheduled for completion in 2014.
The United Kingdom's chief financial regulator fined Royal Bank of Scotland nearly USD $9 million on Tuesday, the agency's largest penalty ever for anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance failures.
The U.S. Treasury Department penalizes a New York bank for transactions tied to Cuba, Italy arrests 300 in a mafia crackdown and the Asia Pacific Money Laundering Group warns of laundering through carbon emissions schemes, in this week's news roundup.
Members of an intergovernmental group that shares information on money laundering and fraud are working to improve the financial intelligence units in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the organization's annual report.
Efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department to get small banks to file their Bank Secrecy Act documents electronically are likely to face stiff resistance despite law enforcement complaints, say consultants.
The U.S. Treasury Department wrote off $3.2 million in 2008 from a failed Bank Secrecy Act data mining program, bringing the losses associated with the project to at least $15.4 million.
Financial intelligence units should better share data on counterfeiting with their counterparts in countries known to export a large number of fake goods, according to an intergovernmental report issued Tuesday.
Banks should streamline their compliance efforts by coordinating their anti-money laundering and anti-fraud programs, the director of the United States' financial intelligence unit said Tuesday.
The Egmont Group, during an April 2006 meeting, gave Bolivia one year to adopt laws or regulations identifying terrorist financing as a crime.
Egmont also admitted India, Armenia, Belarus and Niue during its annual plenary meeting, a spokesperson for the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network confirmed.
Although financial intelligence units (FIUs) have become all the rage, James Richards has long advocated their use by banks in anti-money laundering programs. Richards spoke recently about FIUs and how they are changing the way banks approach AML compliance.
A proposed U.S. Treasury Department database that would track cross-border funds transfers is too costly and may be harmful to the U.S. payments system, say three banking industry trade groups.
President Bush's proposed budget increase for the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is meant in part to help fund its Bank Secrecy Act E-Filing and Cross-Border Wire Transfer initiatives.