Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of Financial Stability at the Bank of England, gave a speech on October 13 at the recently held virtual SIBOS 2021 conference. In his talk, he looked at the impact of ‘crypto’ on the stability of the UK’s financial system. He also spoke about how unbacked crypto-assets (eg Bitcoin) and backed crypto-assets for payments (stablecoins) have begun to connect to the financial system, and how regulators are responding to their rapid growth. Note: as this is Mr. Cunliffe’s speech, we as a platform think that it is very important to publish the whole speech without any modifications due to the fact that it was also checked and verified by several experts. What is written beneath is his original speech. You can find all relevant information on his talk, including footnotes, in the link that is provided at the end of the article. 

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Every day, 20% of all bank staff in the Netherlands is engaged in detecting financial crime. This is a direct consequence of the anti-money laundering and terrorist financing legislation introduced since 2001. Detection efforts are mostly manual and therefore very inefficient: 95% of all alerts generated by transaction monitoring systems are false positives. These are the findings of regulatory technology specialist Hyarchis in its new Regulatory Technology on the Rise report, published recently. Continue reading…

On Thursday 9 September 2021, Richard Faithfull was sentenced to five years and 10 months imprisonment for laundering money, contrary to s.327 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. He was also disqualified from being a company director for a period of 10 years. Faithfull had previously pleaded guilty to that offence on 16 April 2021 and put forward a basis of plea that sought to minimise his role in the offending. The FCA did not accept Faithfull’s basis of plea and the matter was listed for a Newton hearing – a trial of fact on a plea before a single judge – to determine the basis upon which he should be sentenced. 

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The European Central Bank (ECB) has successfully introduced interaction on Fit and Proper testing with significant institutions and their advisors via a dedicated infrastructure called IMAS Portal. Two new procedure types will be onboarded in the coming months to the ECB’s IMAS Portal, i.e. passporting notifications and qualifying holding procedures. They will be onboarded end of (i.e. 27) September 2021. Passporting notifications and applications with regard to qualifying holdings will therefore need to be submitted via the IMAS portal as of 1 January 2022. This relates to passporting notifications by and qualifying holdings in Dutch banks. Hence, significant and less significant Dutch banks.  Continue reading…

In the morning of 8 September, coordinated searches and witness hearings in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark took place to halt the activities of a criminal group committing large-scale investment fraud, causing damages amounting to over EUR 55 million to a large number of victims across Europe. The action followed a complex, three-year-long investigation, which was led by the Public Prosecution Office (PPO) of Dresden and the State Office of Criminal Investigations of Saxony in Germany and coordinated through Eurojust. Continue reading…

An online scam involving the sale of protective materials against COVID-19, such as facemasks, has been halted with the support of Eurojust. During a joint action day conducted on 10 August, 34 searches took place across Romania, Ireland and the Netherlands. In total, 23 suspects were charged, of whom ten have been detained, with Eurojust enabling cross-border judicial cooperation. Companies in at least 20 countries were defrauded of approximately EUR 1 million. Continue reading…

by Elfriede Sixt

EFRI, an association based in Vienna, Austria, set up in spring 2020, by now represents more than 1.052 European consumers who were defrauded by cybercriminals as of writing over EUR 59,2 million in the form of investment scams also referred to as boiler room scams. HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, is known for being a “dirty” bank. It is public knowledge that HSBC for decades has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and HSBC took a prominent role in about all scandals which evolved during the past years: Panama Papers, Swiss Leaks, … (a video on the history of HSBC and its involvement in crimes can be watched here). So probably it is not surprising that this “dirty” bank is also heavily involved in Cybercriminal activities. Continue reading…

Eurojust has supported the Italian authorities to stop an elaborate fraud scheme involving the import of new and used cars from Germany. In total, 60 suspects have been identified, who defrauded the Italian tax authorities of at least EUR 6.3 million in avoided VAT levies. Furthermore, over 200 vehicles were falsely registered in Italy and sold at below market price, creating unfair competition on the car market. Eurojust set up a coordination centre and helped with the execution of European Investigation Orders to Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Germany. Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently launched a public consultation on new Guidelines on the role, tasks and responsibilities of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance officers. The Guidelines also include provisions on the wider AML/CFT governance set-up, including at the level of the group. Once adopted, these Guidelines will apply to all financial sector operators that are within the scope of the AML Directive. This consultation runs until 2 November 2021. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have published an updated assessment of the UK’s access to cash infrastructure, taking into account the impact of coronavirus (Covid-19), alongside new research on consumers who rely on cash. The findings show that most people have reasonable access to cash through a combination of bank, building society, or Post Office branches and ATMs. The FCA and PSR estimate that 95.4% of the UK population are within 2km of a free cash access point and 99.7% are within 5 km. Consumers’ ability to access banking services and cash can be affected when banks and ATM providers make decisions to close branches and cash machines. Continue reading…