Financial crimes

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.

For a country that relies on the energy and drive of immigrants to the extent that the U.S. does, it's surprisingly hard for them to get bank accounts. It's time to reassess what we mean by money-laundering risks.

In this month's roundup of top banking news: a Supreme Court ruling on CFPB funding, TD Bank's money laundering woes, an FDIC workplace probe reveals a culture of misconduct and more.

Shan Hanes, who led Heartland Tri-State Bank in Kansas until it failed last year, pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement by a bank officer. He now faces up to 30 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 8.

Executives at the Toronto-based bank said last year that they planned to add 150 branches in the United States. But when pressed on Thursday, they could not say how much they'll scale back their ambitions due to investigations over TD's anti-money laundering practices.

Executives at the Canadian bank, which recently took a major provision for potential fines, say they're working to shore up anti-money laundering controls. At the same time, they're preparing employees and investors for an expensive slog as they work to satisfy U.S. officials.

The small business lender's bankrupt shell has agreed to pay up to $120 million in connection with allegations that its verification processes for Paycheck Protection Program loan applications were faulty. The government argued that Kabbage reaped larger fees by enabling fraudulently inflated loans.

A veteran Canadian bank analyst says Toronto-Dominion Bank's role in an alleged money-laundering scheme has made the "worst-case scenario" more likely — a huge fine for the lender and years of restrictions on its U.S. growth.

Toronto-Dominion failed to submit suspicious-transaction reports in cases where it was reasonable to suspect the transfers were tied to money laundering or terrorist financing, along with other violations, according to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.

Toronto-Dominion Bank has taken an initial provision of $450 million in connection with U.S. investigations into its anti-money-laundering practices and said it expects additional penalties to come.

Banks reported nearly $27 billion had been tied up in scams or theft against elderly people in a recent 12-month period, according to a report from the U.S. Treasury.

With financial crime surging worldwide, it is critical that the public and private sectors align on a shared vision to collectively focus on combating bad actors and to eliminate their ability to launder the proceeds of criminal activity.

The collection of beneficial ownership data is vital to fighting money laundering. It should be more broadly accessible, and should cover more businesses.

A new report sheds light on the lack of player protections against scams and exploitive data collection practices of video game companies.

The steady drumbeat of consent orders against banks that offer banking as a service continues, with regulators telling banks to keep a closer eye on their fintech partners' compliance with the Bank Secrecy Act and money laundering rules.

A month after the collapse of FTX, federal prosecutors filed eight charges against crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried. Four of them involved wire fraud.

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.

Companies lose an estimated 5% of their revenue each year due to fraud, according to a report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

Prosecutors claim Dan Rotta, 77, hid more than $20 million from the IRS, using "pseudonyms, complicated corporate structures, and nominees" to conceal offshore assets and income.