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India's banking expansion strengthens AML but still weak for non-financials - FATF
India's surging 7% economic growth has expanded its formal economy, enabling the country to strengthen its anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has concluded in its latest mutual evaluation report, although some key weaknesses remain.
Online Published Date:
21 September 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Worse or no better - UK professional body AML supervision
The fifth annual report by OPBAS - the UK Office for Professional Body AML Supervision - describes a recalcitrance among those responsible for ensuring lawyers and accountants comply with their legal obligations to thwart money launderers that is almost incredible.
Online Published Date:
24 September 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Supply chains and tainted funds: applying the new law on money laundering
A controversial recent Court of Appeal judgment affects how UK businesses approach money-laundering issues. John Binns of BCL walks us through the new landscape.
Online Published Date:
28 September 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Capital International fined UK£119,596 for PEP control failings on Isle of Man
Asset manager Capital International Ltd has been issued with a civil penalty of £119,596 (US$160,164) by the Isle of Man Financial Services Authority after an inspection, part of a foreign politically exposed persons thematic project, in April 2022, found inadequacies in its anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism procedures and controls.
Online Published Date:
30 September 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Starling Bank fined £29m in UK over high-risk customer and sanctions control breaches
Digital challenger Starling Bank must pay a UK£28,959,426 (US$38,448,705) penalty after it failed to comply with the terms of a voluntary requirement (VREQ) agreed with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) not to take on high and higher ML risk customers until it had fixed its AML model, and for sanctions screening deficiencies.
Online Published Date:
02 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Workaround - Myanmar money flows
The generals may be losing their grip on power in Myanmar but widespread concern over the authorities' ability to surveil opponents via the banking system has contributed to a growth in alternative remittance, all against a backdrop of strictures on international payments that accompany blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force. Poppy James& Keith Nuthall look into how the money keeps moving.
Online Published Date:
03 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
UK government issues information-sharing guidance
In response to anxiety among UK businesses regulated for anti-money laundering that sharing information on customers to prevent economic crime could breach data protection rules, the UK government legislated - in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, effective 15 January 2024 - to disapply civil liability in such circumstances, and has now followed up with practical guidance.
Online Published Date:
04 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Taiwan tracks up
Taiwan's sovereignty as the Republic of China may remain unrecognised by all but 12 countries, but it is a full member of the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) and has been making significant progress on anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism, finds Keith Nuthall.
Online Published Date:
08 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Kuwait technical compliance undercut by weak effectiveness - FATF
The latest Financial Action Task Force (FATF) mutual evaluation of Kuwait, published 8 October, finds the Gulf state has "basic" understanding of money laundering risk, at national level, and "low" appreciation of terrorist financing risk.
Online Published Date:
08 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Two out of three: Andorra, San Marino, Monaco and EU AML
Small but fiercely independent, Andorra, San Marino and Monaco are working on how closely they might align their anti-money laundering regimes with the European Union model, with marked differences in the progress, as Andreia Nogueira, Brenda Dionisi and Keith Nuthall discover.
Online Published Date:
09 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
EU lays ground for Russia sanctions over 'hybrid' civil disorder attacks
The European Union (EU) has widened activities that can spark EU sanctions to include so-called 'hybrid' threats, such as undermining electoral systems and hacking, which, it says, are employed by the Russian state and associated Russians.
Online Published Date:
09 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
TD Bank fined US$3bn for BSA failings, pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit ML
TD Bank, the tenth largest lender by assets in the USA, pleaded guilty, on 10 October, to conspiring to fail to maintain an anti-money laundering program that complied with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA); to not file accurate currency transaction reports (CTRs); and, a first for a US bank, to launder money. Ultimately owned by Canada's Toronto Dominion Group, the US financial institution will pay just over US$3.1 billion in criminal and civil penalties to US authorities.
Online Published Date:
11 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Total Disaster
"America's Most Convenient Bank" - TD Bank, NA's slogan - it most certainly was, for criminals, for almost a decade, from January 2014 to October 2023. Senior executives, including the Chief Anti-Money Laundering Officer and Bank Secrecy Act Officer, "knew there were long-term, pervasive, and systemic deficiencies" in the bank's AML policies, procedures and controls, but let them pass, in pursuit of a "flat cost paradigm" of profit maximization. Neither is named in the US Department of Justice Information, released on 10 October, but will they be charged?
Online Published Date:
14 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024
Long haul - Australia's regulation of non-financials
Not before time Australia appears on the verge of passing legislation that would bring lawyers, accountants, trust and company service providers, real estate agents and others, including in the cryptocurrency sector, within scope of the anti-money laundering regime. Keith Nuthalllooks at the proposed measures and road to implementation.
Online Published Date:
14 October 2024
Appeared in issue:
318 - 01 November 2024