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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.
In a congressional hearing last May, sanctions experts outlined how gaps in U.S. and EU blacklists could let designated Iranians and other designees exploit the American banking system. But the witnesses failed to point out one important loophole in international sanctions: interbank cover payments.
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 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.
Two measures passed by a Congressional committee this month that could change the way banks notify customers of data breaches are unlikely to become law this year, according to a Senate staffer.
Two agencies at the U.S. Treasury Department have done a poor job protecting sensitive Bank Secrecy Act information from hackers and potential data breaches, a government watchdog said Friday.
Congress is considering a request that would allow the Federal Trade Commission to levy fines against companies with poor controls over sensitive customer data, according to a report released Tuesday.
TJX will provide as much as $40.9 million in pretax funds to compensate U.S. Visa issuers for the cost of reporting the breach and replacing credit and debit cards exposed to hackers. Between 45.7 million and 100 million consumer records were exposed in the breach of TJX's computer systems.
A report issued by San Diego, Calif.-based ID Analytics, which makes ID theft software, looked at about a dozen data breaches involving Social Security numbers and other identifying information.
A security breach at retailer TJX Cos. last year cost banks that reissued payment cards as much as $83 million, according to estimates by credit card company Visa USA. Credit card company officials say the breach exposed about 100 million credit and debit card numbers.
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.
