Legal issues and news

Regulators pushed banks toward multifactor authentication. A new phishing-as-a-service kit, flagged by the FBI, is built to slip right past it.

A proposal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. would require the agency to notify Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network 30 days prior to major anti-money laundering actions against stablecoin issuers. The rule would also allow issuers to directly share normally confidential information with Fincen during the enforcement process.

An automated alert system auto-closed "a very high percentage" of suspicious-activity flags at the bank, the OCC said.

The Department of Justice said that Birmingham, Alabama-based Regions sought forgiveness from the Small Business Administration for a Paycheck Protection Program loan that the bank should have known did not qualify.

New research suggests customers are willing to accept some friction in exchange for more robust fraud controls.

The card brand says advanced artificial intelligence is making it easier for crooks to trick consumers, but the technology also allows banks to fight back.

The White House issued an executive order Tuesday directing the Treasury department, bank regulators and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to advise banks on "red flags" of informal work arrangements. How agencies implement the order will determine how onerous compliance will ultimately be for banks.

The National Credit Union Administration Tuesday submitted a rule to the Office of Management and Budget stating that federal law preempts state laws on interchange, blocking an Illinois statute banning the collection of swipe fees on taxes and tips.

Suncoast Credit Union moved from one-time identity checks to monitoring members for the life of the account. It says fraud losses fell more than a third.

The $110 million settlement, which was mapped out last fall, requires Wells Fargo to establish a $100 million fund to provide downpayment and closing-cost assistance to eligible borrowers who live in or plan to buy a home in certain low- and moderate-income census tracts.

In a move seen to bolster his 2028 presidential run, California Governor Gavin Newsom named Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to lead a new oversight agency; a Pine Bluff, Arkansas, bank employee was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for bank theft; a Fairfax, Virginia, security administrator has been charged with allegedly stealing more than $6.6 million from his employer; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Columbia caught the attacker still inside its systems on Dec. 19, three days before the access window closed, then took four months to notify customers.

As Americans lose more money to scams every year, the nation's largest bank has made a major investment in anti-fraud efforts.

Parker Group unexpectedly ceased operating last week, then filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy a few days later as sponsor banks and customers were left scrambling.

Banking groups that sued the state of Illinois over its law barring banks from charging interchange fees on taxes and tips cheered an appeals court ruling remanding the law to a lower court and vowed to keep the law going into effect, which is slated for July 1.

The opinion that supports national banks' ability to avoid paying interest on certain mortgage accounts in New York is unlikely to be the last word.

The Securities and Exchange Commission initially offered $179.5 million to Michael Bacon, who provided key information to the government about Wells Fargo's fake-accounts scandal. But shortly after SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins took office, the amount was sharply reduced.

An April 20 bankruptcy filing accuses Kfir Gavrieli of recruiting friends, family and his synagogue to sign sham contracts that inflated Aspiration's revenue.

Fincen just proposed the most significant reform to AML compliance in a generation, but its reporting forms are still broken. A handful of key changes would meaningfully reduce compliance burden without reducing investigative value.