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As Finra Awaited SAR Access, Enforcement Actions Stalled

By Brian Monroe

A U.S. Treasury Department effort to better ensure the confidentiality of suspicious activity reports contributed to a delay in regulatory penalties by the nation's non-governmental regulator of brokerage firms. The number of annual anti-money laundering (AML) enforcement actions meted out by the Washington, D.C.-based Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) remained roughly flat last year, rising by only one from its total in 2010, when the self-regulatory organization levied 40 such actions, according to data reviewed by ACAMS Moneylaundering.com. The stasis was paired with a roughly $670,000 drop in the amount of fines issued for violations that included an AML failure....

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