Topic: Financial crime

Germany’s top financial regulatory official has agreed to step down in the aftermath of the Wirecard scandal, as the German government prepares to reorganise the country’s watchdog.

02 February 2021

As German financial regulator BaFin awaits a drastic overhaul of its supervisory powers, the European Securities and Markets Authority has criticised it and accounting watchdog FREP for their “unaligned” handling of the Wirecard accounting scandal.

05 November 2020

Goldman Sachs has been ordered to improve its risk management and oversight procedures after settling with 10 regulators in five jurisdictions over an alleged multibillion-dollar bribery and embezzlement scheme with respect to Malaysian fund 1MDB.

29 October 2020

The US Federal Reserve and enforcement agency FinCEN will require banks to record more data on cross-border transactions to combat terrorist financing under newly-announced proposals, as the latter announces the first fine against a crypto service provider for violating Bank Secrecy Act protocols.

28 October 2020

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has told banks they should report violations of the territory’s controversial National Security Law as they would anti-money laundering/counter-financing of terrorism violations.

22 October 2020

New York’s Department of Financial Services has called for social media companies to be regulated as systemically important institutions, saying a July hack of multiple public figures’ Twitter accounts raised serious cybersecurity concerns.

15 October 2020

Reports released from the Financial Action Task Force and Hong Kong’s securities regulator have pointed to money laundering and terrorism financing “red flags” arising from the use of crypto asset exchanges.

28 September 2020

China’s central bank has announced that it will allow troubled Baoshang Bank to become the first commercial lender to file for bankruptcy in China since 2001, in a move that could prompt other lenders to “step up” their risk assessments and internal audits amid growing non-performing loan portfolios.

10 August 2020

Malta is considering giving its prudential and conduct regulator new supervisory and investigative anti-money laundering powers, as the ECB terminates a local bank’s licence over AML failings.

10 July 2020

The Cypriot securities regulator has fined Germany’s Commerzbank €650,000 after finding it helped inflate the share price of a defunct local bank, in what is thought to be the largest case of market manipulation ever investigated on the island.

08 July 2020