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US Officials See Continuing Need for More Tech Data in SARs
By Valentina Pasquali
printBank compliance departments continue to underreport Internet Protocol and e-mail addresses in their regulatory filings to the U.S. Treasury Department despite repeated requests for such disclosures from federal officials. Under guidance issued by the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in March 2012, anti-money laundering (AML) compliance officers are expected to include the data, along with timestamps and Internet addresses, as part of their suspicious activity reports (SARs) of potential illicit activity, including cyberattacks. The bureau, which warned in December 2014 of a rise in cybercrime targeting financial institutions, found that fewer than two percent of SARs filed by AML...
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The world's largest banks are increasingly devoting resources to guarding their infrastructure against large-scale cyberattacks, and installing new controls to prevent hackers from generating fraudulent payment messages to steal from them.
A U.S. Treasury Department advisory instructing financial institutions to more frequently and thoroughly investigate, report and exchange data on cyberattacks against them could inform a new category of regulatory penalties, say sources.
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Technology-based financial service providers are struggling to obtain accounts at global banks which, despite investing millions of dollars to develop the industry, remain skeptical of their ability to manage its risks, say analysts.
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The current design of federally-mandated suspicious activity reports makes it difficult for banks to report important information tied to suspected mortgage fraud, say former law enforcement agents and consultants.
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