Financial crimes

Financial institutions spent nearly $214 billion last year — an 18% jump from 2019 — to meet regulatory requirements for fighting financial crimes, a new study says. The spending included more staffing to manage risks posed by customer growth.

Prosecutors say Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards leaked over 50,000 documents, including 2,000 suspicious activity reports, related to payments involving former President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign chairman.

While the eventual emergence from lockdown will help ease the pressure on overworked compliance departments, there is still an obvious need for tools that will make the anti-money laundering process simpler and stress-free, says SmartSearch's Martin Cheek.

The National Credit Union Administration issued only one prohibition order in April.

The visibility of automated transactions provides a clear view of the flow of transactions, says Hummingbird's Joe Robinson.

Wall Street firms have urged the Biden administration to ease the industry’s burden in complying with a flood of financial sanctions the U.S. has levied in recent years as a primary tool of foreign policy toward Russia, China, Iran and other adversaries.

Without rollbacks of existing anti-money-laundering reporting requirements, a measure designed to make Bank Secrecy Act enforcement more risk-focused would do little to ease banks' regulatory burden.

The FDIC issued a prohibition order against Mark Wong, who was ordered to pay nearly $220,000 in restitution as part of a guilty plea in January.

Without rollbacks of existing anti-money-laundering reporting requirements, a measure designed to make Bank Secrecy Act enforcement more risk-focused would do little to ease banks' regulatory burden.

The agency’s cases against David Julian, Claudia Russ Anderson and Paul McLinko, which allege culpability for the bank’s phony-accounts scandal, are scheduled to go to trial in September.

The 2020 elections buoyed hopes that Congress would finally make it easier for financial institutions to serve cannabis businesses. But Democrats’ push to decriminalize marijuana — a nonstarter for most Republicans — threatens the more targeted effort.

Transaction fraud and money laundering are typically siloed areas within banks, but both require a keen eye to finding the right patterns.

Two people were charged with using a New York state employees credit union to process more than $1 billion in suspect financial transactions while failing to file suspicious activity reports or maintain adequate anti-money-laundering controls.

As Fincen implements an anti-money-laundering law requiring businesses to add their beneficial owners to a new database, bankers worry they'll still be on the hook to provide that information on behalf of customers for some time.

As more states legalize online gambling, the credit union is preventing members from using their credit and debit cards on those sites. Others could follow its lead.

There are new regulations to address, but many requirements streamline current AML practices, says Mark Srere, an attorney at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

Citigroup hired Ken Blanco, the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, as chief compliance officer of its newly created financial crimes unit.

Alan Kaufman, who will be sentenced in June, faces up to 60 years in prison.

The National Credit Union Administration issued only one prohibition order in March, barring a former branch manager of Greater Iowa Credit Union in Ames from working in the financial services industry.

In an enforcement action that could have reverberations across the sector, the Fed imposed tough penalties on a pair of Wyoming bankers who took confidential information to their new employer.