Financial Services

FINRA’s guidelines in a recent regulatory notice address a host of concerns around compliance while employees work from home. Smarsh’s Robert Cruz discusses what firms should be doing to address the latest FINRA guidance. FINRA, the government-authorized nonprofit organization that oversees broker-dealers in the securities industry, recently issued a regulatory notice on how to manage a remote work environment during...

The Financial Education & Research Foundation (FERF), the independent nonprofit research affiliate of Financial Executives International (FEI) has released a whitepaper showing a trend baseline for filings with and without material weaknesses prior to the business world's coronavirus pandemic response. The paper also explores the potential impact of recent COVID-19 protocols — particularly work-from-home — on future Internal Control over...

COVID-19 has caused a significant shift in the way financial institutions are doing business. Fenergo’s Rachel Woolley discusses what they must do now in order to minimize financial crime. As seen in a recently released report, the penalties issued to financial institutions for AML and KYC breaches reached over $36 billion between 2008 and 2019, an increase of 160 percent...

Gavin/Solmonese’s Anne Eberhardt explores the opposition to the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019, stemming in part from privacy concerns and worry over the potential compromise of preserving market competitive forces. On October 22, 2019, the House voted to pass the Corporate Transparency Act of 2019, a bill to require disclosure of the “ultimate beneficial owners,” or UBO, of U.S. companies....

Firms need not throw away long-established governance principles to adapt to AI/ML. Rather, as Mayer Brown’s Reginald Goeke, Stephanie Monaco and Leslie Cruz share, companies can modify their existing model risk management systems to address issues raised by AI/ML tools. As the financial services industry increasingly turns to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for a...

The global economy is facing an unprecedented threat; though we are just a few months into the pandemic, it has already disrupted markets far and wide. In the financial markets, the impact is clearly visible across the financial value chain. Ajay Katara considers how stress testing can minimize these risks. The 2008 financial crisis caught the financial system unaware and...

Sujata Dasgupta provides an analysis of the upcoming Dutch AML utility – currently under feasibility study – and how it can open up a new world of possibilities in unified transaction monitoring. In the wake of rapidly rising financial crimes, regulators across the globe have toughened their stance on compliance violations and are scrutinizing banks more closely. Penalties on banks...

The environment for regulatory disclosure management has become increasingly complex in the financial services industry. Messagepoint’s Patrick Kehoe discusses the compliance issues institutions of all sizes face, along with best practices for meeting those challenges. Each time a financial services company offers a customer a product, it must disclose everything from fees and interest rates to purchase options and minimum...

What’s next for corporate compliance officers as they navigate balancing regulatory changes, technological advancement, digital fraud and higher customer experience expectations? OneSpan’s Michael Magrath shares his top corporate compliance predictions for the financial services industry in 2020. The regulatory landscape is always changing. In perhaps no industry is that more evident than in financial services. Every new year brings a...

Many global banks and financial institutions would have been delighted if the adage “the numbers speak for themselves” held true to its meaning; it’d save them from deciphering the numbers they generate constantly for various internal and regulatory reporting activities. Ajay Katara explains how some smart automation can help. If we were to take a high-level view of the reporting...

As customers increasingly prefer to do their banking via smart devices, it’s time for banks to modernize their approach to customer due diligence. Financial crimes compliance expert Sujata Dasgupta provides a deep dive on smart ID&V solutions for KYC compliance. Know your customer (KYC) forms one of the strongest pillars of financial crimes compliance, from customer identification and acceptance to...

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has issued its latest report, and the findings could be significant for financial services firms. Theta Lake’s Marc Gilman discusses what organizations need to know. The publication of FINRA’s Report on Examination Findings and Observations is now in its third year. In 2019, the title and framing have changed slightly: “Recommendations” have been recast...