Financial crimes

For all of the sophisticated ways criminals might try to launder money, banks still need to defend against low-tech methods that aren’t easy to track.

After anticipating four years of coordination with the White House, stunned Wall Street critics are reorganizing their priorities and vowing to oppose any attempts by the new Republican government to roll back post-crisis reforms.

President-elect Donald Trump's victory poses a unique quandary for the Federal Reserve both before and after he is sworn in — whether the central bank should attempt to finish the many rules still in process or keep its head down to avoid provoking a hostile Congress.

While remittances may pose higher risks than services like bill pay, they are absolutely necessary in an age of unprecedented migration. It's high time state and federal regulators update the rules to help inspire banks to re-risk.

To jawbone Mexico into paying for the wall, President-elect Trump has threatened to suspend remittances. Such a move would disrupt one of the busiest corridors of money in the world.

While Washington scrambles to make sense of President-elect Donald Trump's victory and Republicans' control of both chambers of Congress, the implications of the 2016 election on the Financial Stability Oversight Council will be swift and severe, analysts say.

WASHINGTON — A group of financial regulators have announced final changes to its ratings system for examining banks' compliance with consumer protection laws. The update to the ratings generally reflects changes in the marketplace since the rating system was adopted in 1980.

As voters in California, Florida and nine other states decide whether to legalize marijuana, the results may force Congress to resolve differences between federal and state laws that have paralyzed much of the banking industry.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve's periodic survey of bank loan officers indicates that a decline in banks' share of commercial and industrial lending activity is likely related to nonbanks' ability to outcompete on both price and loan terms.

Guidance on regulatory expectations is helpful, but it is not yet clear whether such guidance gives financial institutions impetus to onboard or keep clients they perceive to be riskier.

The new cryptocurrency allows users to selectively disclose information about their transactions to authorized parties without exposing it to the world. That feature could make blockchains more appealing to financial institutions, but maybe less so for regulators.

When the San Bernardino shooter obtained a loan online, he reportedly used his real name, which wasn't on the government's sanctions-screening list, underscoring the limitations of identity verification technology.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau decried an appeals court ruling last week that found its single-director structure unconstitutional, saying the opinion was "wrongly decided" and had "no basis in the text of the Constitution or in Supreme Court case law."

Fintech circles are abuzz about the possibilities for streamlining compliance work following IBM's deal to buy Promontory. Artificial intelligence software could help separate false positives from true violations, for example, or read and parse through lengthy regulations.

Federal Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard said in a speech Friday that distributed ledger technology — known as "blockchain" — has great potential for the payment system and important markets, but most of those applications are still years away from maturity.

WASHINGTON — The Basel Committee will move forward with its final regulatory capital rules by yearend despite threats from the European Union that its members may choose to ignore the standards out of fear that they might stifle growth.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew on Friday sought to reassure banks they would not be penalized for the unforeseeable consequences of their presence in certain foreign areas, a fear that has driven a trend called de-risking.

As the financial world comes to grips with the news that the European Union has no intention of implementing the final elements of Basel III, observers are scrambling to figure out how much impact the split could have on U.S. banks and global financial stability.

Strategies include developing formal agreements with partners defining the anti-money-laundering requirements and responsibilities that are expected of them.

In a stunning move, the European Union signaled that it will not follow the Basel Committee's recommendations on standardized credit, operational and market risk rules, citing concerns that the direction of the proposals would unduly increase capital requirements and stifle economic growth.