AML

For more than a decade, the bank allowed billions of dollars from illicit activities to flow through the U.S. financial system unchecked. Some are wondering why examiners didn't put a stop to it sooner.

Regulators' asset cap on TD Bank for money-laundering violations has cemented the enforcement tool as a supreme cudgel to rein in problem banks, while other tools devised in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis gather dust.

The Canadian bank is indefinitely prohibited from growing assets at its two U.S. subsidiaries as the result of a sweeping settlement over money-laundering violations. While only the second imposition of such a penalty ever, experts say it will not be the last.

An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would expand access to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's beneficial ownership database. That would allow financial firms to cut off drug traffickers' financing.

New rules from Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network will mandate reporting for non-financed real estate transfers and expand anti-money-laundering requirements for investment advisors.

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.