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Senate Report Outlines Broad Lapses by HSBC Affiliates, OCC Officials
By Brian Orsak, Brian Monroe and Colby Adams
printPoor anti-money laundering controls on affiliates and problematic oversight allowed a global bank to process tens of trillions of dollars with little to no compliance checks, according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee. A 2010 Supervisory Letter set to be unsealed Tuesday will show that HSBC Bank USA N.A. failed to monitor $60 trillion in wires annually, some of which were processed in Mexico and other high-risk jurisdictions, the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) said in a 335-page report released Monday afternoon. The bank's Mexican affiliate separately shipped as much as $7 billion in bulk cash in a single...
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U.S. officials told an appellate court on Thursday that plans to unseal a report on HSBC's anti-money laundering efforts since 2012 could undercut future efforts to police the financial sector.
The U.S. Justice Department's use of deferred prosecution agreements has been effective though often misunderstood, according to Jonathan E. Lopez, a former deputy chief of the department's Money Laundering and Bank Integrity Unit who oversaw investigations into HSBC and MoneyGram.
London-based HSBC Holdings Plc could find itself paying more to rectify past compliance problems following disclosures this week about the bank's services for clients with criminal ties, according to analysts.
The federal regulator of national banks is set to crack down on financial institutions that fail to address anti-money laundering shortcomings outlined in non-public regulatory reports, a U.S. official said Monday.
A number of large U.S. and international banks are dropping customer accounts and services tied to high-risk geographical regions and lines of business in response to regulatory pressure, including enforcement actions.
A House lawmaker is set to unveil a measure that would broadly expand anti-money laundering controls and require the U.S. financial intelligence unit to critique the findings of financial regulators.
A new U.S. Treasury Department strategy to improve bank oversight will entail more closely reviewing how consistently examiners evaluate risk modeling and transaction monitoring programs, say regulators.
Without the threat of larger monetary settlements or prosecutions, financial institutions have little economic incentive to seriously enforce their anti-money laundering compliance controls, according to Peter Reuter, a professor in the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.
U.S. officials will soon ask an influential intergovernmental group to call on its members to relax laws preventing bank affiliates from sharing data on suspected financial crimes, say sources.
U.S. lawmakers called for testimony from federal investigators Thursday as part of an effort to push for more aggressive punishment of individuals and financial institutions that aid money launderers and sanctions dodgers.
Criticisms of the U.S. Justice Department's apparent decision to forego indictments of HSBC and its employees misses a larger point: the department probably couldn't have won convictions if it tried, say prosecutors.
The U.S. government's landmark case against HSBC Holdings Plc for knowingly turning a blind eye to financial crime is seemingly fated to end much as it began: complex and messy.
Standard Chartered Bank's pending settlement with U.S. authorities for violating sanctions against Iran demonstrates the high-stakes compliance challenge inherent in holding U.S. dollar clearing accounts, say analysts.
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.
Expected criminal and civil settlements over anti-money laundering lapses will likely cost HSBC Bank USA $1.5 billion or "significantly" more, the financial institution said in a regulatory filing Monday.
Intended to ensure strong Bank Secrecy Act programs, compliance audits can nonetheless have an unintended consequence: they can get banks in trouble, say consultants.
In the wake of regulatory crackdowns and multiple criminal probes, financial institutions operating in Mexico are spending millions of dollars to upgrade their anti-money laundering programs, say bank staff.
In the wake of Senate hearings on HSBC and New York State's $340 million settlement with Standard Chartered, the popular press is giving anti-money laundering issues a lot more attention. That's good and bad news for compliance officials.
In the wake of a high-profile congressional hearing, more than a dozen large financial institutions have amended how they share information with affiliate institutions in bank secrecy havens, say compliance professionals.
Time constraints and poor communication have hindered federal bank examiners in identifying broad compliance lapses, and prompted them to give unnecessarily challenging mandates to the financial institutions they oversee.