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Signs of AML Regulatory Focus in 2013 Could Mean Trouble for Small Securities Firms: Supervisory Officer
printPenny stock fraud, the exploitation of variable universal life insurance contracts and soon-to-be introduced customer due diligence regulations should be foremost on the minds of compliance officers at small securities firms, believes Kenneth Cherrier, senior vice president and chief supervisory officer at Overland, KS-based Waddell & Reed, Inc. While large broker-dealers are braced for a pair of expected rules by the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), smaller firms are still struggling with basic anti-money laundering (AML) rules and the need to better identify financial crimes, he said. Cherrier, who will speak next week at the ACAMSmoneylaundering.com 18th...
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In the messy art of prognostication, everything is overly easy and nothing exact, not even compliance expectations. But one thing government officials and financial industry representatives seem certain of: 2015 will prove just as challenging as the past year for AML professionals.
The number of enforcement actions issued annually by the top regulator of large U.S. banks declined in 2013, according to a semiannual report on risk published Wednesday by the agency.
In a year when the number of enforcement actions issued by federal financial regulators fell by nearly half, Bank Secrecy Act-related penalties earned an unusual distinction. They declined by less than 14 percent.
America's oldest private bank will pay $8 million to settle regulatory anti-money laundering violations, the largest such fine imposed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
With plenty of convincing reasons, representatives of the law enforcement and compliance industry say the coming year is fraught with serious challenges.
Relative to the year before, the anti-money laundering (AML) compliance industry drew few headlines over the past 12 months, and yet no one would tell you their job got any easier.
Federal regulators are asking a greater number of community banks and credit unions to invest in automated transactional monitoring systems similar to those used by their larger counterparts, say consultants.
Plans by the U.S. securities market regulator to more strictly enforce regulations will result in a jump in anti-money laundering penalties both by the agency and its private sector partner.
As investment firms look toward new markets to turn a profit, the individuals charged with auditing their compliance program should take note. Bad audits remain a common thread of costly regulatory penalties.
Changes to how and how often securities firms report suspicious activity are helping to clarify the scope of a long-familiar financial crime: microcap fraud.
U.S. law enforcement officials and regulators have queried the nation's financial intelligence unit about securities settlements that use the world's top financial messaging platform, according to the agency's director.
U.S. Treasury Department officials are weighing whether to exempt trusts and offer more flexibility on verification requirements in an upcoming proposal that would impose data collection duties on corporate accounts held at banks.
A New York brokerage firm violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to report suspicious activity related to a scheme to bilk third-party investors, securities regulators said Tuesday.
Two rules adopted Wednesday by the chief U.S. securities regulator may obligate banks to scrutinize public disclosures of their manufacturing and oil, gas and mining accountholders, say analysts.
A U.S. Treasury Department proposal to toughen customer due diligence obligations for banks would increase compliance costs while providing only minimal benefit to law enforcement, according to industry comment letters.
Narcotics traffickers are exploiting the sales of international securities traded in the U.S. market to better layer drug proceeds sent from the United States to Colombia, according to a federal official.
A U.S. Treasury Department effort to better ensure the confidentiality of suspicious activity reports contributed to a delay in regulatory penalties by the nation's non-governmental regulator of brokerage firms.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that it was considering imposing customer due diligence currently applied to private banking and correspondent accounts to all accountholders at depository institutions.
Securities transactions are increasingly being used by South American drug traffickers to launder illicit proceeds, says Manny Muriel, an attaché in the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) Bogota, Colombia office.
In violation of federal law, the confidentiality of suspicious activity reports is being breached regularly by some securities firms, a securities markets regulator said Friday.