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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:51 am
Time: 11:51 am
Results for banking industry
4 results foundAuthor: U.S. Senate. Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Title: U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History Summary: This hearing examined the money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks created in the United States when a global bank uses its U.S. affiliate to provide U.S. dollars and access to the U.S. financial system to a network of high risk affiliates, high risk correspondent banks, and high risk clients. The hearing focused on a case study involving HSBC, one of the largest banks in the world. Headquartered in London, HSBC has a network of over 7,200 offices in more than 80 countries, 300,000 employees, and 2011 profits of nearly $22 billion. HSBC has been among the most active banks in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. It first acquired a U.S. presence in the 1980s; today its leading U.S. affiliate is HSBC Bank USA, known as HBUS. HBUS has more than 470 branches across the United States and 4 million customers. HBUS is the key U.S. nexus for the entire HSBC worldwide network. In 2008, it processed 600,000 wire transfers per week; in 2009, two-thirds of the U.S. dollar payments HBUS processed came from HSBC affiliates in other countries. One HSBC executive told us that a major reason why HSBC opened its U.S. bank was to provide its overseas clients with a gateway into the U.S. financial system. Add on top of that, HBUS’ history of weak anti-money laundering controls, and you have a recipe for trouble. In 2003, the Federal Reserve and New York State Banking Department took a formal enforcement action requiring HBUS to revamp its AML program. HBUS, which was then converting to a nationally chartered bank under the supervision of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, made changes, but even before the OCC lifted the order in 2006, the bank’s AML program began deteriorating. In September 2010, the OCC issued a Supervisory Letter, 31-pages long, describing a long list of severe AML deficiencies, and followed in October 2010, with a Cease and Desist order requiring HBUS to revamp its AML program a second time. The OCC cited, among other problems, a massive backlog of unreviewed alerts identifying potentially suspicious activity; a failure to monitor $60 trillion in wire transfers and account activity; a failure to examine risks at HSBC’s overseas affiliates before providing them correspondent banking services; and a failure, over a three-year period, to conduct anti-money laundering checks on more than $15 billion in bulk-cash transactions with those same affiliates. To examine the issues, the Subcommittee issued subpoenas, reviewed more than 1.4 million documents, and conducted extensive interviews with HSBC officials from around the world, as well as officials at other banks, and with federal regulators. HSBC has cooperated fully with the investigation. The Subcommittee’s work identified five key areas of vulnerability exposed by the HSBC case history. The five areas involve: •Providing U.S. correspondent accounts to high risk HSBC affiliates without performing due diligence, including a Mexican affiliate with unreliable AML controls; •Failing to stop deceptive conduct by HSBC affiliates to circumvent a screening device designed to block transactions by terrorists, drug kingpins and rogue nations like Iran; •Providing bank accounts to overseas banks with links to terrorist financing; •Clearing hundreds of millions of dollars in bulk U.S. dollar travelers cheques, despite suspicious circumstances; and •Offering bearer-share accounts, a high risk account that invites wrongdoing by facilitating hidden corporate ownership. Details: Washington, DC: Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 2012. 340p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 27, 2012 at: www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 126117 Keywords: Banking IndustryDrug TraffickingMoney Laundering (U.S.)Terrorist Financing |
Author: National People's Action Title: Jails Fargo: Banking on Immigrant Detention, Wells Fargo's Ties to the Private Prison Industry Summary: Private prison operators are profiting from the deepening immigration crisis in the United States. Companies like CCA and GEO Group have seen steady growth due to the countryʼs policy of locking up immigrants in privately-managed detention facilities. These companies have spent millions to shape this policy, win contracts, and ensure that the rules are fixed in their favor – all at the expense of some of the countryʼs most vulnerable people. These companies would not be positioned to profit from the countryʼs immigration crisis without the help of prominent Wall Street banks. The industry is capital-intensive and requires enormous amounts of financing from banks that sit at the countryʼs financial and economic crossroads. One bank, in particular, has distinguished itself from the competition as an investor in and lender to the industry: Wells Fargo. This report details the financial ties between Wells Fargo and the top private prison operators in the country: Corrections Corp of America (CCA), GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp (MTC). The information compiled in the report shows that as a lender and investor, Wells Fargo has provided critical support for the private prison industry. This report is the first in a series. A future report will detail other aspects and consequences of Wells Fargoʼs support for the private prison industry, and will raise further questions about the bankʼs role in the private prison industry and the vicious cycle of imprisonment and detention, profit, and political influence it facilitates. Details: Chicago, IL: National People's Action, 2012. 14p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 21, 2012 at http://www.npa-us.org/files/wells_fargo_-_banking_on_immigrant_detention_0.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.npa-us.org/files/wells_fargo_-_banking_on_immigrant_detention_0.pdf Shelf Number: 127247 Keywords: Banking IndustryDetention FacilitiesImmigrant DetentionImmigrationPrivate PrisonsPrivatization |
Author: Financial Services Authority (UK) Title: Anti-bribery and corruption systems and controls in investment banks Summary: 1.1 Introduction 1 This report describes how investment banks and firms carrying on investment banking or similar activities in the UK (collectively referred to here as "firms" are managing bribery and corruption risk in their businesses and sets out the findings of our recent thematic review. We expect regulated firms in all sectors to consider our findings and examples of good and poor practice, as they may also be relevant to firms in other sectors which are subject to our financial crime rules in SYSC 3.2.6R or SYSC 6.1.1R.1 2 We require regulated firms to establish and maintain effective systems and controls to mitigate financial crime risk. Financial crime risk includes the risk of bribery and corruption. (We summarise regulated firms' regulatory responsibilities in this area in Section 2.4.) In addition to these regulatory requirements, bribery, whether committed in the UK or abroad, is a criminal offence under the Bribery Act 2010, which has consolidated and replaced previous anti-bribery and corruption legislation in the UK. We do not enforce, or give guidance on, the Bribery Act. 1.2 Findings 3 We found that, although some investment banks had completed a great deal of work to implement effective anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) controls, most had more work to do. Our key findings are set out below: a) Most firms had not properly taken account of our rules covering bribery and corruption, either before the Bribery Act or after. There are fundamental differences between the two described in this report. For example, our rules require firms to put in place systems and controls to mitigate bribery and corruption risk and we do not need to find evidence of bribery taking place to take action against firms that fail to meet our requirements. b) Nearly half the firms in our sample still did not have an adequate ABC risk assessment, although progress has been made since the implementation of the Bribery Act. c) Management information (MI) on ABC provided to senior management was poor, making it difficult for us to see how firms' senior management could carry out their oversight functions effectively. d) The majority of firms had not yet thought about how to monitor the effectiveness of their ABC controls. Only two firms had either started or carried out specific anti-bribery and corruption internal audits. e) Firms' understanding of bribery and corruption was often very limited. f) There were significant weaknesses in firms' dealings with third parties used to win or retain business, including in relation to compliance approval; due diligence; politically exposed persons (PEP) screening; ensuring and documenting a clear business rationale; risk assessment; and regular review. g) Many firms had recently tightened up their gifts, hospitality and expenses policies by prohibiting facilitation payments, increasing senior management oversight of expenses and introducing or revising limits. But few had processes to produce adequate MI, for example, to ensure gifts and expenses in relation to particular clients/projects were reasonable on a cumulative basis. h) Firms had well-established vetting processes in place when staff were recruited, but bribery and corruption risk had not usually been a factor in identifying high-risk roles which should be subject to enhanced vetting. i) Since the implementation of the Bribery Act, firms had generally provided adequate basic training to staff. But most (i) were still developing training for staff in higher risk roles and (ii) had no processes in place to assess the effectiveness of existing training. Details: London: FSA, 2012. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2016 at: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/static/pubs/other/anti-bribery-investment-banks.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/static/pubs/other/anti-bribery-investment-banks.pdf Shelf Number: 146009 Keywords: Banking IndustryBriberyCorrectionFinancial Crimes |
Author: In the Public Interest Title: The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies Summary: As America's incarcerated and detained populations have boomed in recent years, the business of owning and operating prisons and jails has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry. A new report uncovers which Wall Street banks finance the industry’s two leaders, CoreCivic (formerly "Corrections Corporation of America [CCA]") and GEO Group. The Banks That Finance Private Prison Companies shows that six banks have played large roles in bankrolling CoreCivic and GEO Group: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, and U.S. Bancorp. The report also reveals how these banks profit from providing credit, bonds, and loans to private prison companies. Details: Washington, DC: In the Public Interest, 2016. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 7, 2016 at: https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_BanksPrivatePrisonCompanies_Nov2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.inthepublicinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/ITPI_BanksPrivatePrisonCompanies_Nov2016.pdf Shelf Number: 147942 Keywords: Banking IndustryPrivate PrisonsPrivatization |