The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced on January 15 that Capital One, National Association (Capital One) was fined $390,000,000 for engaging in willful and negligent violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). The violations involved a business unit within its commercial bank called the… Read More »Capital One Fined $390 Million
Staying on top of the dozens of overlapping and ever-changing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements can be challenging for even the largest and most sophisticated financial institutions. As you start your planning for 2021, keep in mind these Top 10 requirements… Read More »Top 10 AML & KYC Tips for 2021
The UK is introducing its new sanction regime in preparation for a future outside of the EU. As of 11pm on the 31st December 2020, financial services firms must comply with the UK’s Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 (the “UK Sanctions Act”). Although very… Read More »New UK Sanctions Regime
On December 18, FinCEN gave another gift to the cryptocurrency industry. It proposed a rule applicable to banks and money service businesses (MSBs) aimed largely at ‘unhosted’ wallets, which are wallets that are not provided by a financial institution but instead reside on a user’s… Read More »Unhosted Wallets Under Fire
There’s a common misconception — reinforced by many well known identity verification providers — that simply verifying a customer’s identity and scanning them against a sanction list satisfies the US anti-money laundering regulations. That’s not quite true. In 2018, FinCEN added an extra layer of… Read More »Identity Verification: Only Half the Battle in the War On Money Laundering
Penny Stocks have been a vehicle for criminal conduct for decades – from pump-and-dump schemes to more traditional money laundering. Yet firms are still being fined for failing to implement an AML program to detect and report potentially suspicious activity relating to low-priced securities. Most… Read More »Penny Stocks – The Gift That Keeps On Giving
What do social media, unemployment, our aging population and the search for a soulmate have in common? They are all opportunities for fraudsters to recruit Money Mules, 2,300 of which US federal agencies caught during their annual Money Mule Initiative according to a DOJ press release on… Read More »Beware of Mules!
A CCO and AML Officer of a small Miami-based broker-dealer settled charges brought against her personally by FINRA for failure to reasonably establish and maintain an AML program. One of the many red flags she disregarded was opening an account for a Venezuelan PEP with… Read More »CCO Personally Liable for AML Failures
While criminal and fraudulent activity has plagued the financial system since its inception, the pandemic unleashed a whole new set of opportunities for those who would seek to illegally benefit from a crisis. Fortunately, this has been a wake-up call for senior management at many… Read More »The Pandemic As Driver For Change In AML
Tis the Season … In addition to the usual acts of giving throughout the holidays, this year is expected to see an increase in contributions to charities helping those in need due to COVID-19. Recognizing this, the US banking regulators published a Joint Fact Sheet on November… Read More »Charities Struggling To Open Bank Accounts
