Britain's largest banking group on Friday called on U.K. officials to shorten governmental deadlines to approve senior managers and consider tasking a new agency with imposing enforcement penalties.
Sometimes a decline in bank enforcement actions isn't a good thing, even for bankers. Such is the takeaway of a review of enforcement action data spanning back five years, during which the number of formal Bank Secrecy Act penalties fell nearly 20 percent while fines and regulatory demands grew.
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 year when the number of enforcement actions issued by federal financial regulators fell by nearly half, Bank Secrecy Act-related penalties earned an unusual distinction. They declined by less than 14 percent.
Fines and monetary settlements paid in 2012 by banks for anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing violations increased 131-fold from the previous year, ACAMS moneylaundering.com data shows.
The U.S. government's financial intelligence unit will resume an abandoned practice of fining banks for Bank Secrecy Act violations apart from the enforcement actions it works on with federal regulators, say sources.
Though none can predict the future, one thing in the AML world seems certain: the jobs of compliance officers won't get any easier in 2013.
A Miami-based bank is expected to agree to pay between $10 million and $15 million to the U.S. government in the next month for Bank Secrecy Act violations, according to individuals familiar with the matter.
Federal examiners are requiring bank boards of directors to be more deeply involved in their institutions' anti-money laundering programs, say compliance officers who have recently faced regulatory audits.
Bank board of directors members can expect to pay civil money penalties if their institutions fail to correct Bank Secrecy Act violations, a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. official said on Tuesday.