As the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority navigates its first week of existence, the agency's newly released business plan promises a tough approach on fighting financial crime with a focus on complex cases.
The U.K.'s planned new regulator of banks and other financial institutions would impose tougher oversight than its predecessor, a series of proposals for the agency's forthcoming operations handbook show.
U.K. financial regulators will likely only get tougher on British banks that violate anti-money laundering laws in the coming year, possibly going so far as to prosecute individuals, according to Jonathan Fisher QC, a London-based barrister.
The United Kingdom's chief financial regulator fined Royal Bank of Scotland nearly USD $9 million on Tuesday, the agency's largest penalty ever for anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance failures.
The U.K.'s chief financial regulator can prosecute criminal money laundering and other crimes despite the fact that the agency is not explicitly given powers to do so, a British court ruled Friday.
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