The United Kingdom Tuesday outlined how it might soon get tougher on tax cheats through revised penalties and clearer standards for criminal prosecutions when individuals are aided by commercial advisors.
British officials will soon review the promises and risks of alternative payment systems, including virtual currencies, as part of a broad initiative to promote advances in financial technology.
A U.K. plan to name the owners of privately-held corporations will help shine a light on shell companies, but how revealing that effort will be remains uncertain.
British asset management firms are failing to adequately address their vulnerabilities to money laundering, bribery and corruption, the United Kingdom's chief financial regulator said Thursday.
British officials are set to propose legislation that would require private corporations and limited liability partnerships to publicly disclose their individual owners, a U.K. minister said Monday.
The U.K.'s planned new regulator of banks and other financial institutions would impose tougher oversight than its predecessor, a series of proposals for the agency's forthcoming operations handbook show.
U.K. financial regulators will likely only get tougher on British banks that violate anti-money laundering laws in the coming year, possibly going so far as to prosecute individuals, according to Jonathan Fisher QC, a London-based barrister.
A recent spate of compliance fines and U.S. investigations has imposed renewed pressure on British banks to improve their anti-money laundering and sanctions programs, say industry sources.
Most laws meant to combat money laundering have proven counterproductive and have failed to address the fact that dirty money is often cleaned in otherwise legitimate businesses, says Andrew Haynes.
A plan by the United Kingdom's Parliament to make it obligatory for non-U.K. financial institutions to disclose data about their British clients is likely to face stiff resistance from the banking sector, say sources.
An appellate court decision rejecting a Zimbabwean couple's demand to know the names of HSBC employees who identified them in a suspicious transaction report could also establish new compliance requirements for British banks.