News
Fear of Major AML Money Penalties Shrinks With Billion-Dollar Bailouts
By Brian Monroe
printFederal regulators that uncover anti-money laundering lapses at banks could face an unusual challenge this year: how to penalize an institution that has been propped up with government money. Financial regulators, including the U.S. Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve, could be forced to either discount fines to avoid exacting taxpayer money for bank mistakes or increase penalty amounts so that federal aid does little to soften the blow, said former FDIC examiner Joe Gunnell. "It definitely blunts the sting of a monetary penalty," said Gunnell, an Ingleside, Il.-based AML consultant. Why should a...
TO READ THE FULL STORY
Related News
The U.S. regulator of national banks is reviewing how it will penalize so-called "pillar violations" of anti-money laundering laws after the agency revamped its enforcement policies ahead of congressional criticism.
A broad criminal probe by the U.S. government targeting employees at some 50 failed banks could also include top compliance officers, according to a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. official.
Taking federal bailout money can come with a lot of strings attached: public relations strings, capital oversight strings and, surprisingly, anti-money laundering compliance strings.
The Internal Revenue Service's anti-money laundering division is in the process of revamping how it examines tens of thousands of money services businesses, according to a former U.S. Treasury Department official.
U.S. regulators Thursday released the latest Bank Secrecy Act examination manual for financial institutions, clarifying regulatory requirements on bulk currency shipments, suspicious activity reporting and compliance department structures.
U.S. investigators arrested the former chief executive officer of a Manhattan-based bank Monday for allegedly embezzling money from a fraudulent loan and attempting to cheat the government out of federal bailout funds.
A government watchdog's call for stronger anti-money laundering controls on a federal bank bailout program could result in a "significant step up" in compliance duties for companies involved, say consultants.
The proposed governmental program allowing the purchase of toxic bank assets "presents an ideal opportunity" for criminals wishing to launder money, a U.S. watchdog agency said Tuesday.
A federal financial regulator is reviewing the anti-money laundering programs of large, national banks in an effort to establish regulatory benchmarks, say government officials and compliance officers.
Plans to have flailing financial institutions certify how they use bailout funds may leave the companies open to large fines under the False Claims Act, say legal experts.
Federal banking regulators, besieged by a surge in bank closings, are resorting to re-hiring retired examiners to speed up receiverships and resolve billions in toxic assets, the flotsam of a still unsettled mortgage meltdown.
The FDIC, the chief regulator of more than half of U.S. financial institutions, failed to identify violations involving customer identification programs in at least three of 24 financial institutions reviewed, the Office of the Inspector General said in a report Friday.
In its 2007 business plan, the FDICs Office of Inspector General said it will increase efforts to investigate fraud at institutions supervised by the agency, develop educational outreach programs and create a database to better track suspicious activity reports.
Account history reviews are often expensive but their lengths can be negotiated, according to KPMG Forensic principal Darren Donovan.
Four experts in the legal, regulatory, and finance fields offer advice for detecting regulatory trouble with common AML issues.
The IRS will use these first exams, which target 14 insurers of various sizes, to gather information and fine-tune procedures for future audits.