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Weighing Revisions, FATF Unlikely to Weaken PEP Recommendations
By Brian Monroe
printThe Financial Action Task Force is likely to reject a proposal that would soften its standard on compliance controls for the accounts of political figures, according to an official at the intergovernmental group. The organization, known as FATF, requested comments in October on proposed changes to its 49 recommendations, including amendments that would make tax crimes a predicate offense to money laundering. A proposal on politically exposed persons (PEPs) would free financial institutions from having to apply extra scrutiny on accounts controlled by family members and associates of PEPs. While the group is still considering dozens of recommendations and reviewing...
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Four months after the enactment of the EU's latest anti-money laundering directive, British officials are considering how to navigate new standards for political accounts in light of complaints from lawmakers.
A global anti-money laundering watchdog is set to criticize a pair of European countries for failing to require banks to identify parties that send or receive wire transactions, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
A new grading system by an intergovernmental group on how effectively jurisdictions fight money laundering and terrorist financing is likely to compel global financial institutions to rethink their geographic risk-rankings.
As the United States continues its crackdown on foreign banks that aid American tax evaders, the role compliance officers can play in reporting the crime remains unclear, say bankers.
Calls for a survey of how U.S. banks monitor high-risk accounts are likely to be ignored even if such a review would expose anti-money laundering compliance gaps, say industry experts.
The Financial Action Task Force is weighing whether to ask jurisdictions to loosen their privacy laws and require companies to retain data on their owners, among other changes to the group's standards.
Foreign government officials with U.S. accounts are increasingly banking at smaller financial institutions that are vulnerable to financial abuse because of scant compliance resources, say analysts.
An intergovernmental group said Wednesday that it was considering asking countries to make tax evasion a predicate crime of money laundering and to issue tougher AML standards on political figures.
An influential international anti-money laundering group may request that its members pass legislation tying tax evasion to money laundering as part of an effort to to pierce Swiss bank secrecy.
Accepting corruption proceeds from "politically exposed persons" is money laundering plain and simple. But there's no sure-fire way of identifying this specific high-risk category of customer and the possible corrupt source of his or her money.