Financial crimes

Deutsche Bank's offices in Frankfurt are being searched by law enforcement authorities over reports about potential money laundering that were filed by the lender.

Acting Director Himamauli Das acknowledged concerns from Democratic lawmakers that Fincen was moving too slowly to implement beneficial ownership rules but said the agency "will likely continue to do so, because our budget situation has required us to make significant trade-offs among competing priorities.”

The industry is preparing for a grueling federal rulemaking process to implement the Corporate Transparency Act, which was intended to streamline anti-money-laundering compliance. Analysts say the devil will be in the regulation’s myriad details.

Anchorage Digital Bank has an inadequate AML compliance program and will have to create a committee within 15 days to develop a remediation plan and submit progress reports, according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The Federal Reserve permanently banned a former Goldman Sachs Group managing director from the financial industry for improperly using and disclosing the regulator’s bank-supervision information.

Even as the Biden administration ramped up sanctions against Russia on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen faced questions from Republican lawmakers who want to go further. Yellen, meanwhile, stressed the value of working together with allies.

Banks must comply quickly with fast-moving sanctions against the Kremlin and have to spot questionable Russian companies and wealthy individuals. At the same time, some need to deal with settlement risk of trades that involve rubles. Sophisticated data sharing and analysis are making it easier to do the job.

The White House's $5.8 trillion spending proposal to Congress includes more dollars for anti-money-laundering enforcement, Small Business Administration loan guarantee programs and affordable housing financed by community development financial institutions.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency slammed the San Antonio bank for anti-money-laundering violations. The penalty is the latest in a series of regulatory problems for USAA.

Four of five bills aimed at countering Russian aggression in Europe won significant bipartisan support from the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday. But the panel adopted a bill intended to expand the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's ability to hunt down Russian assets over fierce Republican opposition.