Are you suspicious? This is a key question at the heart of efforts to tackle money laundering: if you work for a bank or other financial institution and have suspicions money laundering is happening, you have a legal duty to speak up. Your suspicion could be based on pure intuition – a sense that something just doesn’t quite add up – but the law nonetheless expects you to act. In his speech, Rob Gruppetta, Head of the Financial Crime Department at the FCA, he tackels this issue. You can read the speeh on our website.
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The result of the annual review of the significance of credit institutions, as well as changes in group structures and other developments that affected five banking groups in 2017, brings the number of significant institutions to 119, down from 125 at the beginning of 2017.
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Staff from the European Commission, in liaison with staff from the European Central Bank, visited Dublin from 28 November to 1 December to conduct the eighth post-programme surveillance (PPS) review for Ireland. This was coordinated with an International Monetary Fund’s Staff visit. Staff from the European Stability Mechanism also participated in the meetings on aspects related to its Early Warning System. The main objective of PPS is to assess the country’s capacity to repay loans granted under the former EU-IMF financial assistance programme and, if necessary, to recommend corrective actions.
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Risk professionals must make risk “accessible and relevant” to drive value, according to Amanda Mellor, group secretary and head of corporate governance, Marks & Spencer. Risk management still lacks relevance in many boardrooms across the UK, according to Amanda Mellor. She warned that, although risk management is an “increasingly critical topic”, it is still often perceived as “compliance” and “divorced from business”.
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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published the results of its Peer Review on the Guidelines on certain aspects of the compliance function under MiFID (Guidelines). The Guidelines cover national competent authorities (NCAs) supervision of investment firms’ compliance functions, particularly how those functions carry out risk assessments, monitor compliance obligations, report to senior management and fulfil their advisory role.
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In January 2016, the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) passed by the European Union came into legal force, altering existing legislation with the aim of creating safer and more innovative European payments. With the expiration of the two-year implementation period in January 2018, the banking industry will be facing a post-PSD2 world. This is something that Comtrade Digital Services believes will give those in the finance industry two options: go all in and get on board the digital train, or back away, potentially forever.
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All central banks in the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are strongly committed to supporting and promoting adherence to the Foreign Exchange Global Code of Conduct (the “Code”). 15 of the ESCB central banks, including the European Central Bank, simultaneously issued Statements of Commitment to the Code. The remaining ESCB central banks will do so in 2018. Continue reading…

The year 2016 – with the UK referendum, the change of power in Washington, geopolitical tensions, terrorist attacks, and the rise of populist parties – will perhaps be seen as a time of awakening. 2016 could become the moment when the EU realised that it had to stand up for itself. And that nobody would do for us what we don’t do for ourselves. In 2012, the UK Prime Minister published a table to show his strong support of the Single Market and incidentally his support for the Commissioner in charge of the Single Market. It shows that, in 2050, there will be no European countries left in the G8. But by remaining together, the 27 will stay, in the long term, in the top 5.
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It is said that the Viennese writer and journalist Karl Kraus once asked a budding academic what he was planning to study, upon which the young man said, “Business ethics.” To which Kraus replied, “One or the other, you can’t have both.” This brief exchange rather neatly reflects a view held across much of our society – that business and ethics are irreconcilable rivals at opposite ends of the spectrum. It is widely thought that the banking sector, more than anywhere else, bears testament to this idea of business being an ethics-free zone. And who could blame them for thinking that way? After all, financial crises and scandals – like the one in which banks colluded for years to rig benchmark rates – don’t exactly put the picture straight. In some instances, these scandals were rooted in unethical behaviour. Court rulings, fines and an exodus of customers are a stiff price to pay for this conduct, not least for the banks themselves.
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