Financial Services

Financial institutions have increasingly embraced the practice of de-risking as part of their AML strategies. This approach involves reducing or severing business relationships and services with entities deemed high risk. While de-risking may seem like a sound strategy in theory, it is crucial to examine its impact on the very customers these financial systems aim to serve. Banking compliance officer...

Global financial regulators levied 97 fines in the first half of 2023, totaling more than $189 million, representing a huge decline from the same period in 2022, according to a new analysis. The second halves of calendar years typically see an increase in enforcement actions, but the findings by Fenergo confirm a multi-year trend of decreasing fines, which peaked in...

Federal regulators’ attention on the use of mobile devices in the financial services industry has companies adopting new technology and revamping their policies. And, as MirrorWeb’s Harriet Christie explores, everyone in the organization plays a role in keeping compliance center-stage. The SEC’s primary function is to protect investors, by drafting and enforcing regulations which hold firms accountable for their actions....

The U.S.-China relationship has never exactly been a great one — remember the spy balloon? But recent escalations on both sides of the divide have corporations with business interests in China caught in the middle. Guidepost Solutions’ Bradley Dizik and Akiko Goldberg discuss the strain on due diligence investigators. While reliable information from China has always come at a premium,...

The SEC over the past few years has dramatically ramped up its fight against so-called toxic lenders: convertible note purchasers who gobble up and then dump stock in small-cap companies, turning tidy profits along the way. Greenspoon Marder’s Howard Mulligan explores recent enforcement trends and sizes up the odds against these toxic lenders. Since early 2020, the SEC has been...

This year has already seen four bank failures, starting with the spectacular collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, and the latest domino to fall was a Midwestern regional bank. The total number of bank failures this year meets the mark for the highest number of bank failures since 2020 — and the year’s not out yet. Financial services consultant...

In the nearly six months since the failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), three others have gone belly-up, the most recent of which was just last month. While many have focused on the risk-related causes of SVB’s failure and the lessons one could draw from it, Riskonnect CEO Jim Wetekamp shines a light on a less-discussed angle: business continuity. The...

Financial services companies, at a heightened risk of payment-related fraud due to the nature of their services, are also at an elevated risk of layoffs so far in 2023. Baptiste Collot, CEO of Trustpair, warns against letting leaner teams fall victim to the risk of payment fraud. The overall economic outlook of the U.S. may have improved since early in...

Multi-factor authentication. Biometrics. Cybersecurity training. Organizations do a lot to keep their employees from falling victim to a cyber attack. And in the financial services sector, a breach of consumer data can trigger major penalties. But what if the solution is hiding in plain sight? Darren James has one word for you — passwords. After the 2020 SolarWinds hack, the...

Starting this week, the UK’s Consumer Duty Act is in force for new and existing insurance products or services open for sale or renewal. The new law marks a significant shift in the Financial Conduct Authority’s expectations for firms in the insurance industry. Charles Rowley, managing director of business management consultancy DA Strategy, gives an update on the challenges the...

Racial and gender bias continues to plague investing in both the U.S. and UK. In fact, in 2022, women-founded U.S. startups garnered just 2% of the total venture capital invested, and new research from both sides of the pond reveals more about the attitudes of investors and founders alike. Illumen Capital, an impact fund based in Oakland, Calif., released its...

New cybersecurity requirements are coming for financial advisers and others in the financial services sector. While enforcement isn’t here yet, as Sean Wilke of IQ-EQ explains, the tools to put effective compliance in place are already within reach. Financial firms are doing business in a golden age for cybercriminals. In 2022, web application and API attacks against financial services firms...