by Ahsan Habib

Canada has become a well-known target, even a magnet, for money laundering. Ironically once a Canadian has the legal right of ownership, the law firmly protects that right. For that reason laundered money in Canada is much more valuable than dirty money elsewhere. And that is why money launderers are ready to pay well over asking for high-priced real estate, where multimillion-dollar blocks of cash can be cleansed in a single deal. The defining issue of our times must be who will stop these criminal predators from selling opioid, laundering the proceeds, buying up real estate and violating every conceivable aspect of Canadian sovereignty and the Criminal Code. Let’s go deeper into the ‘Rabbit Hole’….. Continue reading…

The December 2019 BIS Quarterly review on ‘easing trade tensions support risky assets’ is  available. During the teleconference pressconference statements were made on the record by Claudio Borio, Head of the Monetary & Economic Department and Hyun Song Shin, Economic Adviser & Head of Research. Continue reading…

by Marta Andreeva

The public grasped how big of a deal beneficial ownership is and how abuse of legal persons for money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF) affects us all perhaps in 2015 with the Panama Papers scandal. For the compliance geeks and practitioners, this hasn’t perhaps come as such a surprise, albeit the scale of it has undoubtedly shocked everyone. The hype surrounding scandals that involve faces familiar from Hollywood or the political arena makes topics from the anti-money laundering (AML) world the news headlines.

The idea of transparency of company ownership, however, isn’t new. The global money-laundering watchdog – the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the first international organisation to set up standards on beneficial ownership in 2003. In accordance with FATF Recommendation 24, countries should take measures to prevent the misuse of legal persons for ML/TF, and ensure that there is adequate, accurate and timely information on beneficial ownership and control of legal persons that can be obtained or accessed in a timely fashion by competent authorities. Continue reading…

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has put in place its cemented Basel Framework. The framework unites all of the Basel Committee’s worldwide standards for the regulation and oversight of banks and details these on its website under a new section. In April 2019, the Committee formulated a draft variant of the solidified Basel Framework. In it, the standards were presented in a newly developed format that concentrated on revamping existing requirements, not on providing new prerequisites or changing the principles that were previously agreed upon and published by the Basel Committee. Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has recently brought attention to the fact that it is going to disallow the mass marketing of speculative mini-bonds to retail customers. The ban by FCA is said to be introduced without consultation and is expected to go into effect on January 1 2020 for a duration of 12 months. As of recent, this is a restriction, but the FCA also intends to discuss the formation of lasting rules concerning the ban. Continue reading…

The European Banking Authority (EBA) publishes updated guidelines on harmonised definitions and templates for the reporting of funding plans. The changes include additional details of forecasted market based funding, alignment to FINREP reporting and additional proportionality for small and non-complex credit institutions. This update is the result of the experience gained through the EBA’s assessment of banks’ funding plans in the recent years.

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The Bank of England (the Bank), Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have today published a shared policy summary and co-ordinated consultation papers (CPs) on new requirements to strengthen operational resilience in the financial services sector. Building the operational resilience of firms and Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) is a shared priority for the three supervisory authorities. The co-ordinated CPs build on the concepts set out in the operational resilience Discussion Paper published by the authorities last year, addressing many of the proposed policy changes based on the responses we received. Continue reading…

An easing of US-China trade tensions in October triggered a risk-on phase in global financial markets. In September, risky asset prices across the globe stayed range-bound, supported by additional monetary accommodation in a context of subdued prospects for global activity. As sentiment shifted, stocks posted large gains in most markets but China, and credit spreads tightened. Term spreads in advanced economies (AEs) initially widened in line with the change in market sentiment. But their upward momentum petered out after a few weeks.

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The European Union adopted a new €297 million assistance package to support refugees and host communities in Jordan and Lebanon via the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis. The EU has also decided to extend the mandate of the Trust Fund which will allow the Trust Fund’s projects to run until the end of 2023.

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Michel Klompmaker

On November 14, the first edition of the Augmenting Customer Due Diligence (ACDD) event was held at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht. Compliance is certainly not a boring field and you must be fully familiar with what is possible and what is not allowed. No financial institution, large or small, appears to be immune to the threat of fraud or money laundering. This event was meant to examine how data and innovation can accelerate progress towards common goals, such as cost reduction and streamlining of the CDD (KYC) process. Continue reading…