The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England have recently set out their intentions to augment their data and analytics aptitudes. They both rely on the availability to high-quality data to meet their individual targets of both continuing monetary and financial stability, market integrity, effective competition and consumer protection. The FCA’s invigorated Data Strategy sets out a transformation plan to turn into an exceptionally information driven controller. The system indicates the organisation’s increasing focus on the use of cutting-edge analytics and automation strategies to provide more depth into the comprehending of how markets work and enable the FCA to productively foresee, monitor and react to firm and market issues.
Continue reading…

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released a list of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) performance evaluations that became public during the period of December 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019. The list contains only national banks, federal savings associations, and insured federal branches of foreign banks that have received ratings. The possible ratings are outstanding, satisfactory, needs to improve, and substantial noncompliance.

Continue reading…

Laura Langone, head of insurance operations at online rental marketplace Airbnb since April 2019, is now president of the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS).

The organization announced Thursday her 12-month appointment, effective immediately. She succeeds Gloria Brosius.

Daring to be different is key for risk professionals, the San Francisco-based Langone said in a statement from RIMS. Complacency isn’t something the industry can afford, she said. The time has come to embrace new technologies, different perspectives and different strategies.

“Stepping outside of our comfort zone can be intimidating, but those who are ready for the challenge will find greater opportunities to strengthen their risk programs and elevate their careers,” she said. “I am beyond excited to serve as RIMS 2020 president and to help ensure this global risk management community offers the tools, resources, and support that allows us all to dream bigger, aim higher and be different.”

Langone’s long career in risk management spans more than two decades. She has been a member of RIMS for 22 years and been on its board of directors since 2016. She has held a number of positions within the RIMS Silicon Valley Chapter, including serving as its president for four years. She has volunteered on several RIMS committees and chaired the group’s Enterprise Risk Management Committee in 2015.

Before joining Airbnb, she led insurance and risk management both at PayPal, an online payments company, and Juniper Networks, an international tech company that develops networking and cybersecurity products. She was a senior vice president at Marsh, according to her LinkedIn bio, and holds an MBA and a Juris Doctor legal degree.

Joining Langone as officers on the RIMS board are:

RIMS vice president Ellen R. Dunkin, a senior vice president, general counsel and chief risk officer at Amalgamated Life Insurance Company RIMS treasurer Patrick Sterling, a senior director of legendary people and risk at Texas Roadhouse; and RIMS secretary Jennifer Santiago, assistant vice president and university risk officer at Penn State.

Two new members joining the board are Tina Gardiner, who serves as manager of risk management services for York Region in Ontario, and Twane Duckworth, chief of risk management for the City of Jacksonville.

Brosius, who is director of risk management and insurance at Pinnacle Agriculture Distributions, will remain on the board as ex-officio.

Source: https://www.canadianunderwriter.ca/

The new president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has sworn to acquaint GDPR-style legislation to oversee artificial intelligence (AI). Ursula von der Leyen has made the following comments on this pledge by stating, “With the GDPR, we set the pattern for the world. We have to do the same with artificial intelligence. It is not about damming up the flow of data. It is about making rules that define how to handle data responsibly. For us, the protection of a person’s digital identity is the overriding priority.”
Continue reading…

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.

Continue reading…