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FATF List Prods MSBs, Online Payment Companies to Drop Markets
By Brian Monroe
printA report by an intergovernmental watchdog highlighting the anti-money laundering weaknesses of more than two dozen countries is prompting non-bank financial institutions to drop customers and avoid risky markets. The Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released the blacklist in February, dividing the 28 jurisdictions into three tiers of risk. More than a dozen money services businesses (MSBs) and online payment facilitators have since revamped their market plans based on the list, according to Jeff Sklar, managing director of SHC Consulting Group in Bellmore, NY. Some U.S.-based MSBs are "shying away" from countries listed by FATF, including Pakistan, Nigeria and...
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Arizona has granted the nation's largest money transmitter an additional three months to improve its anti-money laundering compliance program and avoid criminal prosecution.
U.S. officials will soon ask an influential intergovernmental group to call on its members to relax laws preventing bank affiliates from sharing data on suspected financial crimes, say sources.
The world's premier financial crime watchdog declined Friday to suspend Turkey's membership and disclosed how its assessors will begin evaluating jurisdictions on the efficacy with which they fight illicit finance.
The Financial Action Task Force is set to implement a two-tiered grading system for future mutual evaluations as part of an effort to better score the efficacy of anti-money laundering regimes.
Since the 2011 indictment by the U.S. Justice Department of some of the most prominent online gambling sites in the world, the financial risks posed by Internet betting have changed, believes Christine Duhaime, barrister and solicitor at Vancouver-based Duhaime Law.
One of the country's top lobbying groups for money services businesses will ask lawmakers in February to streamline how the companies obtain licenses to operate in the United States.
The terms of a $100 million settlement disclosed Friday by MoneyGram for anti-money laundering lapses will cost the Dallas-based money remitter nearly $200 million once completed, regulatory documents show.
An intergovernmental group's revised expectations of how countries should seize looted assets may prove difficult to meet, and could lower the mutual evaluation scores nations receive for their anti-money laundering controls.
A 2008 investigation of Colombian cash couriers by customs officials and the U.S. Justice Department that made headlines for its ties to European cocaine sales had a lesser known result: Bank Secrecy Act regulations.
The Financial Action Task Force threatened Friday to suspend Turkey's membership if the country fails to pass counterterrorist financing laws ahead of a Feb. 22 meeting by the group.
An intergovernmental group that evaluates how countries fight money laundering and terrorist financing will change how it grades compliance with its standards beginning next year, say individuals familiar with discussions.
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An agreement by one the nation's largest money transmitters to better share transactional data with investigators has resulted in greater scrutiny, both for the business and its chief competitor.
The U.S. Treasury Department will issue guidance expanding on pending regulations in an effort to plug compliance gaps ahead of the Financial Action Task Force's next review of the United States.
Dozens of small banks and credit unions have begun courting money services businesses over the past year, offering financial services to the high-risk clients in exchange for compliance-related fees.
Money services businesses have been slow to respond to an April request by the U.S. Treasury Department to provide more data on their individual agents, say compliance professionals.
Finding themselves locked out of some large U.S. banks because of compliance concerns, third-party payment processors are increasingly turning to small- and mid-sized institutions for financial services, say consultants.
Bank of America has cut its ties to North Korea after the nation topped an intergovernmental blacklist of countries with poor anti-money laundering regimes, according to a bank compliance official.