Risk Management

PwC has decided to “lean in” to cryptocurrency work after years of a more guarded approach, citing a friendlier U.S. policy environment under President Donald Trump and new legislation governing digital assets, according to the Financial Times. 

European banks could cut more than 200,000 jobs over the next five years as lenders accelerate adoption of artificial intelligence and continue closing branches, according to estimates cited by the Financial Times.

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order directing the federal government to loosen marijuana regulations and accelerate a long-stalled effort to reclassify the drug, a step that could mark one of the biggest federal shifts on cannabis policy in decades, Reuters reported.

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 EU’s Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) on Thursday published draft technical standards intended to unify how financial supervisors assess risks and how the supervisory body will select the “most complex” high-risk institutions and groups it will directly oversee. 

The UK government will examine the role of cryptocurrency donations in politics as part of a wider review of party-financing rules triggered by a bribery case involving a Reform UK politician, Bloomberg reported.

The U.S. government is threatening to downgrade Fiji to the lowest tier in its global human trafficking rankings unless authorities take “decisive action” against a religious group linked to human trafficking and transnational organized crime, OCCRP reported. 

A top Democratic senator has warned that Chinese intelligence is still inside U.S. telecommunications networks as part of a sweeping cyber campaign known as “Salt Typhoon,” saying the operation gives Beijing access to the unencrypted communications of almost anyone in America, the Financial Times reported.

Nine of the largest U.S. lenders made “inappropriate distinctions” among customers in politically sensitive sectors, including by applying enhanced risk controls in response to negative media reports, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) said.