Legal issues and news

The state's Department of Financial and Professional Regulation will reduce assessments by 61% this year because of overpayments in 2020, helping state-chartered credit unions deal with economic fallout from the pandemic.

A group representing bank directors says the regulator’s sudden attempt to increase penalties by millions of dollars would set a dangerous precedent.

Security is a constantly changing game, with criminals adopting new strategies and the payment industry and other financial institutions deploying increasingly sophisticated techniques to stop them.

Merchant service providers need dynamic cybersecurity assessment tools to identify the key areas of risk in their portfolio in near real-time, says ZeroRisk's Neira Jones.

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.

Fraud detection and prevention technology must align with clear return policies and strong customer service ensuring that confused but loyal and well-intentioned customers can continue to purchase from merchants, says Ravelin's Mairtin O'Riada.

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 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau disputes a district court ruling that misconduct claims against the company were already covered by a previous settlement.

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.

The Maryland company is closer to addressing claims it lacked sufficient controls under its previous management.

Modern payment processors using AI to interpret and analyze trends and point-of-spend data can detect fraud across ecommerce in real time and provide that knowledge onwards to the bank just as quickly, says Paymentology's Abe Smith.

The company paid Driver Opportunity Partners nearly $10 million for the shareholder's stock and to resolve a longstanding legal battle.

Credit unions are warning members that fraudsters are trying to prey on them by asking for data in exchange for appointments that turn out to be bogus.

Financial crime isn’t going away, and it’s growing worse all the time. That’s why institutions need to move at the speed of fraud, says Quantexa's Clark Frogley.

The single-use element of virtual cards deters hacking, says Nvoicepay's Kristin Cardinali.

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.

The growth in e-commerce has opened new avenues for crooks, with better tech, compliance and educated consumers needed, says Ecommpay's Paul Marcantonio.

Call center data security and compliance provider Semafone has entered a global reseller partnership with cloud-based communications company Avaya to help secure \work-from-anywhere call center models.

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.