News

With multi-million dollar anti-money laundering penalties fresh in their memories, financial institutions are giving added scrutiny to the habits of their wealthy foreign clients with an eye to deciding which of those private banking relationships are worth the risk. And, even when institutions keep international clients, they are increasingly giving them a shorter leash for indiscretions, sometimes dropping them after filing one or two suspicious activity reports (SARs), when formerly they might have filed five or six SARs before seriously thinking of pulling the plug, according to AML consultants. Financial institutions are making that change, despite the potentially significant fee...