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.
With plenty of convincing reasons, representatives of the law enforcement and compliance industry say the coming year is fraught with serious challenges.
Though none can predict the future, one thing in the AML world seems certain: the jobs of compliance officers won't get any easier in 2013.
A U.S. Treasury Department budget proposal to shift Bank Secrecy Act oversight duties from the IRS to state examiners could run into funding troubles from state agencies, say officials.
The White House proposed Monday trimming the U.S. Treasury Department's budget by three percent for the coming fiscal year, including a seven percent drop in funding for the country's financial intelligence unit.
As many federal agencies have watched their budgets and staffs shrink or remain static in recent years, the U.S. Treasury Department office charged with researching economic sanctions has seen something rare: growth.
House lawmakers Friday passed a $1 trillion appropriations bill that would trim nearly $2 billion from the U.S. Treasury Department's proposed budget, if approved by the Senate.
A little more than two years ago, investigators for a large state got a letter from a U.S. Treasury agency notifying them that the suspicious activity report they had accessed a few weeks earlier had also been viewed by a district attorney's office in another state.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit had one overriding objective: to better share its cache of Bank Secrecy Act data with investigators.
Planned budget cuts that would limit cooperation between regional investigators and the U.S. Treasury Department's financial intelligence unit would be nixed under the latest congressional appropriations bill.
A proposed funding cut that would restrict some governmental access to a U.S. Bank Secrecy Act database could also make it harder for state examiners to vet banks and money services businesses, say critics of the plan.
The U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network would see its budget rise by nine percent for fiscal year 2011 under a Senate proposal released Tuesday.
Budgetary constraints and understaffing are hampering U.S. Treasury Department plans to update technology used by its financial intelligence unit to gather and store data, U.S. lawmakers said Wednesday.
Contending with a lengthy recession, some U.S. banks have fallen behind on their core anti-money laundering compliance duties, including risk ranking customers and reporting suspicious activity, say federal officials.
The House Financial Services committee plans to hold a hearing in July to consider a bill that would authorize FinCENs proposed $85.8 million budget for fiscal 2008. The bill would also authorize FinCEN funding for fiscal 2009 through 2012.
The Bush Administration is seeking a 7 percent budget increase next year for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that includes about $4 million for units that investigate bulk cash smuggling and trade finance-related money laundering.