The primary supervisor of U.S. national banks will soon publish guidance "reiterating" how financial institutions can manage compliance risks posed by their foreign correspondent clients, the agency's chief said Wednesday.
Governments have yet to collect sufficient data to fully understand the reasons for and impact of a reported decline in correspondent banking services throughout the globe, a Basel-based organization said Friday.
Global financial institutions, regulatory agencies and industry groups should develop and adopt standardized know-your-customer requirements to reduce due diligence costs tied to correspondent transactions, central bankers said Wednesday.
Republican lawmakers have asked a governmental watchdog to investigate the U.S. Treasury Department's anti-money laundering and sanctions enforcement efforts in light of allegations that bank examiners may have improperly requested account closures.
The International Monetary Fund called on watchdog groups and governments to clarify their compliance expectations and improve cross-border data-sharing in an effort to reverse a global decline in correspondent banking relationships.
Financial institutions have yet to develop a practical method to evaluate and limit the compliance vulnerabilities that political figures and high-risk businesses pose, according to a U.K. study published Tuesday.
A World Bank study set to be published next month will suggest that the compliance risks often associated with money remittance firms may not be as serious as they seem.
U.S. bank restrictions have exacerbated the troubles of Somali money services businesses to the point that companies and individuals alike are resorting to complex workarounds to send money to the East African nation.
Fear of regulatory trouble is compelling some banks to turn down business to avoid the huge compliance costs of vetting potential clients, attendees at a banking conference in London heard Thursday.
Short of abiding by the Community Reinvestment Act and other prohibitions against discriminatory lending, banks still have the right to choose who they'll do business with. While that seems like an obvious statement, it gets drowned out in the debate about "de-risking."
U.S. national banks must formally declare their risk limits and ensure the independence of their boards of directors, the Treasury Department ruled Thursday.
In a rare gesture last week, a federal regulator signaled to banks that they might relax when it comes to implementing certain anti-money laundering policies. There was only one problem: no one is likely to listen.
What do foreign diplomats and porn stars have in common? If you were thinking the question is a set up for a joke, you haven't been reading the news lately. It turns out that both porn stars and foreign government officials face difficulties finding a U.S. financial institution that will bank them.
The British High Court injunction Tuesday against Barclays ending its relationship with Somali money services businesses is likely to keep the bank from dropping the accounts for five or six months, according to compliance experts.
Federal financial regulators have asked more than a dozen large and midsize banks to better ensure that validations of their anti-money laundering risk models are conducted independently, say officials.
In every longstanding relationship, there comes a point when both parties begin to question something they once thought they had agreed on. Talk to a Bank Secrecy Act officer at a conference, over dinner or in a bar and one point of friction with federal regulators inevitably becomes clear.
U.S. lawmakers called for testimony from federal investigators Thursday as part of an effort to push for more aggressive punishment of individuals and financial institutions that aid money launderers and sanctions dodgers.
Criticism of the U.S. Justice Department's apparent decision to forego indictments of HSBC and its employees misses a larger point: the department probably couldn't have won convictions if it tried, say prosecutors.
The U.S. government's landmark case against HSBC Holdings Plc for knowingly turning a blind eye to financial crime is seemingly fated to end much as it began: complex and messy.
A nearly $330 million deferred prosecution agreement with a London-based bank reinforces the peril financial institutions face when engaging in look-backs for possible sanctions or anti-money laundering violations.