The director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) at the United States Department of the Treasury wants to make it easier for banks to share information about real and potential financial crimes. Citing a provision of the USA Patriot Act, Director Kenneth A. Blanco has put together a fact sheet and addressed the sharing… Read More >>
CFTC Enforcers Report Banner Year for 2020
’Tis the season for annual reports, and one of the most instructive is from the regulator Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and its Division of Enforcement. When it comes to the CFTC’s mission to “be tough on those who break the rules,” as Division of Enforcement Acting Director Vince McGonagle puts it in a commission… Read More >>
Nasdaq Bolsters Its Crime-Fighting Line-Up
Nasdaq Inc. is acquiring Verafin, based in Canada, and its set of related “anti-financial crime management products.” These related products use “data analytics, machine learning, and visualization and investigation tools.” The Nasdaq platform itself is widely known as the first electronic exchange, and the goal of this acquisition, according to a statement, is to deploy… Read More >>
Pandemic Drives Up Costs for Fighting Financial Crime
The pandemic is surging and, partly because of the coronavirus epidemic, so is the cost of monitoring and reporting financial crime. The graphs and spreadsheets that financial services professionals pore over are bringing the disturbing news. And as one veteran observer of the securities industry puts it, Wall Street doesn’t like what it sees. Just… Read More >>
Financial Crime Probes Miss the Mark: Report
Banks and other financial firms are expected to encounter “increasing risks and exposure to losses” because of “hackers and online adversaries.” That is the top-line conclusion of the 2020 Global Financial Crimes Survey, conducted by Authentic8, in partnership with the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists (ACFCS). Authentic8 offers a platform that “enables anyone, anywhere,… Read More >>
FinCEN Moves to Overhaul AML Practices
Changes are coming to banks’ the anti-money laundering practices and procedures. The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has unveiled an early look at those proposed prospective changes in its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), soliciting public comment on pending regulatory amendments under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The FinCEN’s proposal is likely… Read More >>
NICE Actimize Targets Mid-Market via ‘Xceed’
The just-launched Xceed platform from NICE Actimize brings together aspects of anti-money laundering (AML), fraud prevention, artificial intelligence (AI), and behavioral analytics in a cloud-native offering. Cloud-native systems have been developed specifically for the cloud computing environment, and are intended to leverage the advantages of the cloud. They are not platforms that were originally designed… Read More >>
$96M of Luxury Loot Sought via 1MDB Scandal
The United States Justice Department (DoJ) reports that it has filed civil forfeiture complaints aimed at the “recovery of approximately $96 million in assets allegedly associated with an international conspiracy to launder funds misappropriated from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.” Those assets include “luxury real estate in Paris, artwork by Claude… Read More >>
Commerzbank Fined $47M via AML Controls Case
A U.K. regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has fined the London branch of Commerzbank AG $47.5 million for allegedly using inadequate anti-money laundering (AML) systems and controls from October 2012 to September 2017. A representative of the international bank based in Frankfurt, German, tells FTF News that the FCA investigation uncovered “no actual financial… Read More >>
Criminals Are Taking Aim During the Lockdown: Q&A
(Editor’s note: FTF News got a chance to ask Rachel Woolley, director of financial crime at Fenergo, about criminals who are taking advantage of more firms working remotely during the pandemic.) Q: In your opinion, why are fraudulent transactions and money laundering scams on the rise during the pandemic? A: As many of us have… Read More >>
