The crucial role of a business-wide risk assessment

In its recently revised ML/TF Risk Factors Guidelines, EBA stated that financial institutions should use the findings from their business-wide risk assessment[1] to inform their AML/CFT policies,…

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2021 Q2 Trend Letter

The i-KYC Trend Letter this quarter features Edwin Hers as the guest contributor. Edwin, a seasoned Compliance professional with a passion for training and coaching shares his observations about the…

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Four recommendations to improve operational compliance – lessons from downunder

For this Trend Letter I’ve found 2 articles with a link to Australia. The first is about the never-ending ingenuity of money launderers and the phenomenon of cuckoo smurfing…

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CDD analysts: they ‘look’ but what does it take to make them ‘see’?

Edwin Hers – June 2021 Authorities are showing their teeth. Multiple financial institutions have settled with the authorities over the last couple of years related to inadequacies in their KYC…

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MONEYVAL 2020 Annual Report

With its 36 member-states and territories MONEYVAL is the largest of eight FATF-style regional bodies. It is the monitoring body of the Council of Europe entrusted with the task of assessing…

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2021 Q1 Trend Letter

Following the 2008 financial crisis regulators and the industry resolved to improve their control of the OTC derivatives markets and a raft of regulations ensued. For Europe EMIR was adopted and in…

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The AML system is broken

Conventional wisdom dictates that an investment is justified by the return it provides. This clearly is not a driver for the $180B banks spent in 2020* fighting money laundering because, let’s face…

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Of course they knew

Reading this summary https://www.riskscreen.com/kyc360/news/newly-obtained-audit-report-details-how-shady-clients-from-around-the-world-moved-billions-through-estonia/ of what happened at Danske Bank…

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EMIR, where do we go from here?

EMIR is the EU regulation to reduce the systemic risk of OTC derivatives by setting guidelines for reporting to the regulators, making clearing mandatory for a large proportion of the trades and…

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2020 Q4 Trend Letter

What a remarkable year 2020 was! As it draws to a close we keenly look forward to what 2021 may bring. In this last Trend Letter of 2020 we focus on several subjects that we think will matter to the…

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