Articles

ForteBank CCO Timur Mussin continues a discussion on the real cost of noncompliance with a look at the various penalties – reputational, financial and otherwise – associated with regulatory violations. Read Part 1 here. High-Risk Products As part of fierce competition, organizations are improving their products and services, including through innovative solutions. At the same...

Compliance officers and small business owners across all industries and in large and small organizations are faced with dual challenges. They live in fear of failing an audit yet they are under pressure to reduce costs. They struggle to keep up with compliance efforts, all while knowing that a single bad audit could be a...

Nutter McClennen & Fish’s Mark Jensen and Ian Roffman address the SEC’s recently issued rules for the use of derivatives. Here, they discuss the SEC’s key findings and policy decisions and emphasize the significance of the new rules to affected fund groups and fund investors. On November 2, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...

Timur Mussin, CCO at ForteBank, discusses the importance of a strong ethics and compliance program and explores some of the chief reasons to develop a culture of compliance. Once upon a time, financial organizations functioned without a compliance control system; functions similar to parts of compliance were carried out by full-time lawyers, internal auditors or...

Banks have long outsourced certain audits, but banking-fintech relationships are new ground. Brandi Reynolds discusses a persistent problem in bank internal audit departments and offers a path forward. Co-sourcing or outsourcing certain internal audits is nothing new to bank internal audit departments. In the 1980s, IT/MIS (management information systems) functions started growing in sophistication, and...

November 25, 2020 – IntegraCall® AI-driven whistleblower platform has a new look: Speeki, a revolutionary but simple, private and secure platform that enables you to engage your stakeholders for honest and actionable insights that ensure compliance and drive effective growth. With Speeki, companies can learn how to grow their business using valuable insights, enjoy peace...

Most financial institutions are already on the path to using artificial intelligence in markets surveillance. NICE Actimize’s David Ackerman explores how this shift will impact compliance and the new skills compliance officers will need to cultivate. As those tasked with financial market compliance will tell you, the vast majority of modern-day surveillance methods are predicated...

Behavox CEO Erkin Adylov discusses the serious reputational and monetary consequences financial firms face as a result of today’s remote working environment. The threat of employee misconduct has pushed corporate risk to new heights. Cast your minds back to the end of 2019. The headquarters of financial firms were bustling, full of people blissfully unaware...

Fresh from the IFCA’s first International Compliance Congress, Sofia El Mansouri offers an overview of the event’s theme and select highlights from the past week. A successful five-day event came to a close as the International Federation of Compliance Associations (IFCA) ended its first International Compliance Congress on November 20, 2020. As one of the...

Recent coverage of the FinCEN data leak has illuminated the need for an evolution in SAR filing. Hummingbird CEO Joe Robinson explains how and why the financial services industry needs to innovate now, through technology, to help solve the SAR problem. The #FinCENFiles coverage, though flawed and exaggerated, did highlight legitimate weaknesses in the U.S....

The regulatory and compliance environment is becoming increasingly complex at a time when the IT industry is undergoing massive disruption. Oomnitza’s Arthur Lozinski offers several regulatory considerations that need to be taken in managing the IT estate. The enforcement period for the new California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) started only on July 1 of this...

As we move into the next season of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are still seeing a dramatically reduced amount of employee spend on travel (T&E) But a new report shows risk for businesses tripled when looking at year over year Q3 spending. Why is risk rising dramatically against a backdrop of reduced spending and what should business leaders...

LogicGate broadens options for customers looking for more guidance in creating GRC programs  CHICAGO (November 19, 2020) – LogicGate, a leading provider of cloud software solutions for automating governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) processes through its Risk Cloud™ platform, today announces an expansion of its Application suite with seven new out-of-the-box Applications. The Risk Cloud...

FinCEN recently released the factors it will use when deliberating an action against a financial institution for Bank Secrecy Act violations. FTI Consulting’s Jaco Sadie, Michael Buffardi and Stephanie Fauerbach explore how discrete issues could trigger multiple FinCEN enforcement factors. On August 18, 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a statement identifying the...

TORONTO (November 18, 2020) – Asigra Inc., a leader in backup and recovery software that delivers comprehensive backup repository cyber protection, today forecast five ransomware challenges expected to impact businesses in 2021, driven in part by an escalation of increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks globally. Tasked with ensuring operational continuity, Asigra is responding to these challenges...

NEW YORK (November 18, 2020) – Only 5.8 percent of respondents report a decrease in the size and frequency of risks that their organizations’ internal controls programs faced during the past year, according to a new Deloitte poll. When asked if their organizations plan to strengthen resilience for internal controls in the year ahead, over three-quarters said “yes”...

A CCO doesn’t necessarily need a legal background. Some think it’s better when they hail from somewhere else, in fact. Nicole Di Schino considers whether a legal background works for or against the compliance pro. Should your next chief compliance officer come from the business ranks of your company rather than from the legal team?...

Companies that fail to create a "speak up" culture run the risk of talking over the voices they need to be listening to most. A rising trend of the last few years has seen employees become increasingly vocal about injustices perpetrated by their workplace or employer. Those that have not been able to find a...

The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 is similar to the CCPA, but there are significant differences. Baker Donelson’s Matthew White and Alexander Koskey summarize several of the provisions of the CPRA that all covered businesses need to consider. While most of us have been understandably focused on the presidential election, the State of California...

The majority of fraud examiners expect to see a significant uptick in fraud over the coming year, which means fraud interviews will be on the rise as well. In recognition of International Fraud Awareness Week, The Bonadio Group’s Tim Ball discusses best practices for conducting fraud interviews. International Fraud Awareness Week is November 15-21, 2020....

A modification has been proposed by FinCEN and the Federal Reserve board to lower the threshold for the requirement to collect, retain and transmit information on funds and transfers. As Brandi Reynolds explains, this could have major implications for the crypto sector. The “Travel Rule,” otherwise known as the funds transfer recordkeeping regulation, requires financial...

The pandemic era has ushered in new challenges for financial institutions. Are current risk Identification and control assurance methods enough to deal with the challenges of a dynamic environment? Samiksha Sharma discusses how to address changing needs in an evolving risk landscape. The pandemic era has seen financial institutions activate their business continuity plans in...

Monitoring your intermediaries can be an expensive endeavor. Jim Nortz explores how to keep an eye on your intermediaries without breaking the bank. Read Part 5 here. Years ago, a friend of mine recounted for me his first law school class. He and his fellow classmates had assembled and were seated in the lecture hall....

Michael Toebe shares practical insights from compliance experts on how to establish a speak-up culture (not just a process), why tone from the top alone isn’t enough and how leadership can prove their credibility and commitment to investigating wrongdoing. Speaking up in the face of problems is not as welcomed and practiced as it could,...

Tom Fox details the bribery scheme at J&F Investimentos SA (J&F), a Brazil-based investment company, the company's FCPA violations and the following DOJ resolution and SEC settlement. Given the inventive ways J&F engaged in bribery and corruption, compliance practitioners would do well to study this particular case.   Download the full whitepaper below.

"Snapshot" report blends AI and human oversight to deliver cost-effective due diligence at scale LONDON, NEW YORK – Refinitiv has launched a new AI-powered due diligence report to help businesses stay on top of the risks associated with increasingly complex supply chains. The data-driven "Snapshot" report offers a quick and cost-effective review of suppliers and business...

As COVID-19 rages on, companies continue to go digital. Riskonnect CEO Jim Wetekamp offers guidance on how to conduct successful audits in a remote work environment. As the COVID-19 pandemic magnifies existing threats and constantly creates new risks for organizations to assess, business leaders are seeking added assurance that appropriate oversight, capabilities and controls are...

The pandemic has changed the way most companies are onboarding new hires, presenting compliance managers with new challenges to face. True Office Learning’s Harper Wells explores what compliance programs can do to effectively train new (and often remote) workers. The first days of a new job can be exciting, optimistic and a little nerve-wracking, but...

Asking questions with empathy is crucial when you're getting to the heart of a compliance issue. ComplianceLine's Amanda Hosenfeld welcomes Will McSpadden to share how ComplianceLine's adaptive interview lays waste to the competitor's 10-question script for fielding compliance concerns and complaints.

Acuant®GO Provides the Fastest Go-To-Market Option with Proven, Secure Technology Los Angeles, CA (November 10, 2020) – Acuant, a leading global provider of identity verification solutions, today announced the launch of Acuant®GO, a suite of no-code solutions. Acuant®GO delivers the power of the Acuant’s Trusted Identity Platform at lightning speed. It is the fastest way to go-to-market and...