Two recent evaluations of third-party audits conducted on behalf of banks highlights an unresolved question in the compliance world: can you sometimes get what you pay for?
The Federal Reserve cited Germany's second-largest bank Thursday for broad deficiencies in its anti-money laundering program, including insufficient risk-ranking, suspicious activity reporting and bulk cash controls.
The U.S. regulator of national banks said Thursday in a consent and cease-and-desist order that Citibank N.A. must grant its anti-money laundering compliance department a greater say in business decisions.
A London bank in talks with the United States for potential violations over its economic sanctions compliance program spent $150 million in 2010 on related transaction reviews and upgrades.
The $1.1 billion sale to U.K. bank Standard Chartered PLC follows enforcement actions issued in August requiring American Express Bank Ltd., the American Express private banking subsidiary, to pay $65 million in penalties and acknowledge its responsibility for AML and Bank Secrecy Act failures.
The penalty, the largest against a U.S. institution for AML violations, resulted from a four-year investigation of a Colombian narcotics and money laundering operation.
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