Money laundering

Past crises have created opportunities for criminal organizations to inject their funds into the legitimate banking system. Bankers can't allow that to happen again.

Who counts as a politically exposed person, or PEP, is different in different jurisdictions. Uniformity in the identification of people considered a higher risk for money laundering would ease compliance headaches for everyone.

Banks cannot shrug off the impact of sudden account closures as inevitable collateral damage involved in fighting money laundering.

Bank customers' complaints of sudden account closures track a rise in automated anti-money-laundering decisions and possibly outdated AML rules.

The platform will allow banks to share the names and account information of suspected scammers almost in real time. The American Bankers Association is set to test the system with a group of 20 pilot banks early next year.

In its biannual report on supervision and regulation, the Federal Reserve Board noted an uptick in governance issues with large banks. Regional and community banks, meanwhile, were plagued by IT problems and risk management struggles.

Fincen's final rule issued Tuesday allows reporting companies to use Fincen identifiers as shorthand for a full list of preapproved beneficial ownership data, which the agency says will streamline the reporting process.

The Treasury Department is expanding a whistleblower program, which currently deals only with anti-money-laundering violations, to include tips from employees of financial institutions that result in sanctions-related penalties.

U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Oscar Marcelo Nunez-Flores, a New Jersey bank staffer of a bank unnamed in case documents, was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly took bribes to launder millions in drug money to Colombia.

As financial institutions increasingly rely on artificial intelligence for anti-money-laundering and fraud detection, they face challenges in meeting regulators' demands for complete transparency and documentation.