The U.S. Treasury Department finalized its long-awaited customer due diligence rule Friday shortly after the introduction by the White House of a bevy of corporate transparency-related measures.
The leak of millions of records purporting to show widespread exploitation of offshore financial centers by global leaders, lenders and criminals is expected to draw governmental scrutiny of illicit finance, however unevenly.
U.S. officials will soon finalize rules clarifying customer due diligence obligations and requiring financial institutions to identify the beneficial owners of corporate accounts, according to the White House budget office.
As the U.S. Treasury Department readies beneficial ownership rules for financial institutions, senators are weighing the introduction of two competing corporate transparency bills that would require disclosures by private companies.
This time last December, one might reasonably have expected that 2014 would be a year of modest changes for the anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance sector. Then came JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas and a convoy of Russian tanks to quash that notion.
In an op-ed, former U.S. Treasury Department official Chip Poncy says that the financial community should support proposed regulations on customer due diligence.
A U.S. Treasury Department proposal that asks banks to identify corporate owners could also end up shining a light on the often murky hedge fund sector, say attorneys.
The Obama administration is pushing lawmakers to introduce legislation that would require corporations to obtain tax identification data that could be turned over to investigators.
The proposed customer due diligence rule that was released July 30 was notable for what it didn't require, perhaps even more than for what it did.
In a long anticipated move, the U.S. Treasury Department Wednesday proposed to require a broad range of financial institutions to identify the beneficial owners of their corporate accounts.
Intergovernmental plans to better identify corporate owners will do little to thwart financial crooks, even at great cost to banks and governments, according to an academic report on offshore financial flows.
EU parliamentarians voted Tuesday to require member-states to update their laws targeting money launderers and the financiers of terrorism, in part by naming corporate owners.
A European Parliamentary committee Thursday approved far-reaching changes to the EU's rules combating money laundering and terrorist financing, including an amendment that would require nations to publicize corporate owners.
A U.K. plan to name the owners of privately-held corporations will help shine a light on shell companies, but how revealing that effort will be remains uncertain.
British asset management firms are failing to adequately address their vulnerabilities to money laundering, bribery and corruption, the United Kingdom's chief financial regulator said Thursday.
British officials are set to propose legislation that would require private corporations and limited liability partnerships to publicly disclose their individual owners, a U.K. minister said Monday.
U.S. Treasury Department officials are weighing whether to exempt trusts and offer more flexibility on verification requirements in an upcoming proposal that would impose data collection duties on corporate accounts held at banks.
Critics of a U.S. Treasury Department plan to strengthen beneficial ownership reporting by financial institutions aired their concerns to Obama administration officials at a rare public hearing Tuesday.
A U.S. Treasury Department proposal to toughen customer due diligence obligations for banks would increase compliance costs while providing only minimal benefit to law enforcement, according to industry comment letters.
The exploitation of shell companies by arms traffickers, terrorist financiers and other criminals represents a serious danger to U.S. national security, a high ranking U.S. Treasury Department official said Thursday.