Oversight

Australian regulators took coordinated action on Thursday to address weaknesses in the anti-money laundering and risk-management controls of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, including the imposition of a A$50 million operational-risk capital charge. 

The U.S. regulator of national banks scaled back some of the compliance obligations it had imposed on Citigroup under a 2020 enforcement action that penalized the lender for inadequate risk controls and data-management practices, the Financial Times reported.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) has filed civil proceedings in the High Court against ASB Bank, alleging breaches of core requirements under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act dating from at least December 2019. 

Nationwide Building Society has been hit with a £44-million fine by the UK’s financial regulator over longstanding weaknesses in its systems to detect and prevent financial crime, including failures that allowed tens of millions of pounds in fraudulent Covid furlough payments to pass through a customer’s account.

The Trump administration is moving to give the U.S. Treasury Department’s financial intelligence unit a decisive say over how banks are punished for anti–money-laundering (AML) failures, according to new reporting by The Wall Street Journal. 

The UK government is taking aim at corrupt bankers, lawyers, and accountants and deploying new tech tools to identify dirty money as part of a new strategy to root out tens of billions in illicit funds entering the country each year.

The United States is tightening its oversight of the tens of billions of dollars resident and undocumented migrants send home each year through Western Union, MoneyGram, and other money services businesses (MSBs), according to a recent U.S. Treasury Department warning.  

Spanish lender Santander has agreed to pay €22.5 million ($26.18 million) to settle a long-running tax fraud case in France, bringing to a close an investigation that began more than a decade ago, according to Reuters.

Nigeria’s central bank has unveiled sweeping new cash withdrawal limits and related rule changes aimed at curbing cash dependence and reducing security and money-laundering risks, according to Reuters.

China’s central bank has restated its hard line on cryptocurrencies, warning that a renewed wave of speculation is testing regulators and vowing tougher action against illegal activities involving stablecoins, according to Reuters.