News

Criticism of banks for opening accounts online instead of in person, within minutes instead of hours or days, is coming from an unusual source. Other banks. Struggling to come to grips with a nationwide fraud epidemic, smaller U.S. banks are pointing their finger at the largest ones for unwittingly opening "drop" accounts—or "drops," in the parlance of the dark web—for criminals, who then use them to cash stolen checks or to move and launder proceeds from romance scams, impersonation scams and other swindles. "The source [of the fraudulent check problem] is the apparent know-your-customer lapses at the largest institutions that...