A legislative proposal that would empower the IRS to assign Employee Identification Numbers to all American corporations is drawing congressional support, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
Despite tightened controls on interbank messaging, some bankers looking to hide the role of their blacklisted clients in international wires need only type a single key on their keyboard, according to experts.
The EU is pushing the United States for answers following reports that the National Security Agency siphoned bank messaging data held in the European Union, possibly in violation of a July 2010 treaty.
Proposals to bar Iranian financial institutions from a global interbank messaging service would impose additional costs on Iran's banks without entirely blocking them from accessing Western financial institutions.
The National Futures Association handed out three separate fines to entities and individuals over AML violations, four Vatican priests have been charged with laundering hundreds of thousands of dollars, and more, in this week's roundup.
The disclosure that U.S. officials have solicited and directly received data from foreign banks on transactions tied to Iran is spurring talks among European lawmakers, according to Alexander Alvaro, an EU Parliament supervisor.
The United States and European Union tentatively agreed Monday to a plan allowing the sharing of interbank messaging data as part of investigations into terrorism.
The Royal Bank of Scotland will pay the United States $500 million over Bank Secrecy Act and sanctions violations committed by the now defunct ABN Amro, U.S. officials said Monday.
The European Union and the United States move ahead with negotiations over Swift interbank data and a New York court sentences an alleged terrorist financier to ten years in prison, in this week's news roundup.
The European Commission proposed Wednesday a data sharing agreement that would grant European Union investigators access to information on U.S. bank accounts in cases of suspected terrorist ties.
The rejection by the EU Parliament Thursday of a data sharing agreement with the United States is likely to leave U.S. investigators without timely access to European banking data for the second month in a row.
A client of UBS AG pleads guilty to tax evasion as a longstanding data sharing arrangement between the United States and the European Union is poised to collapse, in this week's news roundup.
An interim agreement allowing U.S. investigators continued access to European financial data in terrorism cases will likely be ratified in February by a skeptical EU Parliament, according to EU officials.
The EU Council passed a controversial agreement Monday to extend the access of U.S. counterterrorism investigators to European financial data by another nine months.
Banks should provide more detailed information on parties involved in cover payment transactions once a new interbank messaging system is implemented in the fall, according to an international banking committee.
For all of the concern over the money laundering risks associated with cover payments and cross-border transactions, there is a simple solution: more transparency, according to an anti-money laundering compliance director.
The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank and The Clearing House have told banks how to comply with new formatting procedures for cover payments wired internationally, the organizations said Monday.
The European Union proposed rules Tuesday on how electronic money might be issued, a step meant to further expand the market for prepaid and stored value payment products.
The Belgian-based consortium plans to open the center by then end of 2009 as part of an effort to restructure how financial data is transmitted internationally.
Because data protection laws in Europe and elsewhere make it difficult for a multinational financial institution to share data among all of its branches, the laws "will be the biggest impediment to protection from terrorism," the officials said.