AML

The Biden Administration firmly rejects proposed cuts to key financial oversight and consumer protection agencies in the Republican-backed financial services appropriations bill for fiscal year 2025.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a proposal mandating banks enhance their anti-money-laundering and counterterrorism financing programs, including measures to address fentanyl trafficking and Russian money laundering.

The co-funder and CEO of Minerva, a regulation technology platform, is one of American Banker's 2024 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Fiercely polarized U.S. politics. Rapidly multiplying payments options on social media networks and elsewhere. Those factors and more are making it harder than ever for banks to combat illicit financial transactions.

Banco San Juan Internacional is suing the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Board of Governors in Washington claiming they wrongfully terminated its access to the federal payments system.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Tuesday proposed a rule to include investment advisors in the compliance regime under the Bank Secrecy Act, aiming to close regulatory gaps exploited by criminals.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network fined a New York credit union employee $100,000 Wednesday in connection with a scheme to launder $1 billion using armored trucks and the credit union's Fed master account.

The Federal Reserve and New York State Department of Financial Services fined the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for violations related to a lack of internal controls for confidential supervisory information and anti-money-laundering compliance failures.

Banks cannot shrug off the impact of sudden account closures as inevitable collateral damage involved in fighting money laundering.

Bank customers' complaints of sudden account closures track a rise in automated anti-money-laundering decisions and possibly outdated AML rules.

In its biannual report on supervision and regulation, the Federal Reserve Board noted an uptick in governance issues with large banks. Regional and community banks, meanwhile, were plagued by IT problems and risk management struggles.

Fincen's final rule issued Tuesday allows reporting companies to use Fincen identifiers as shorthand for a full list of preapproved beneficial ownership data, which the agency says will streamline the reporting process.

The Treasury Department is expanding a whistleblower program, which currently deals only with anti-money-laundering violations, to include tips from employees of financial institutions that result in sanctions-related penalties.

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Oscar Marcelo Nunez-Flores, a New Jersey bank staffer of a bank unnamed in case documents, was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly took bribes to launder millions in drug money to Colombia.

The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an alert Friday calling on financial institutions to closely monitor and report suspected financial activities related to Hamas, including complex cryptocurrency transactions and through fictitious charities.

Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said most small businesses will need to report information about their beneficial owners at the start of next year; certain financial and government entities are exempt because of their preexisting regulatory requirements.

The $100 million-asset bank ran afoul of various regulatory standards, including credit oversight, anti-money-laundering controls and third-party risk management.

House Republicans' accusation that government agencies are being weaponized against political conservatives underlines a longstanding challenge for banks: Balancing customers' data privacy and stopping financial crime.

The subpoena is part of a growing Republican narrative that Democrats have weaponized the Federal Bureau of Investigation against conservatives.