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Unreal Identities Leading to Real Crimes

February 4, 2019 by Nasdaq Verafin

Synthetic identity fraud has become a vehicle for fraudsters to commit a host of financial crimes, such as account fraud, loan fraud or online banking fraud. Criminals combine real and fabricated identification information to create synthetic or fake identities which... 

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Business Email Compromise (BEC) Fraud

December 10, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

This blog was originally published in July 2017 and has been updated to reflect up-to-date statistics and references. Business Email Compromise (BEC) has become a big earner in the criminal world and a serious fraud threat for financial institutions (FIs)... 

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FinCEN and Federal Banking Agencies Encourage Banks to Innovate

December 4, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

A joint statement released on Dec. 3, 2018, by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and its regulatory partners — the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and... 

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Actionable Intelligence: The Way Forward for the BSA

November 7, 2018 by Jim Richards

From its birth on October 26, 1970 as the Foreign Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, through make-overs in 1986 (criminalizing money laundering and structuring), 1990 (establishing FinCEN), 1992 (introducing Suspicious Activity Reports), and 2001 (the biggest make-over with the USA... 

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A Brief History of the BSA

November 7, 2018 by Jim Richards

From its birth on October 26, 1970 as the Foreign Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, through make-overs in 1986 (criminalizing money laundering and structuring), 1990 (establishing FinCEN), 1992 (introducing Suspicious Activity Reports), and 2001 (the biggest make-over with the USA... 

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Finding Renewed Purpose in the Bank Secrecy Act

November 7, 2018 by Jim Richards

From its birth on October 26, 1970 as the Foreign Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, through make-overs in 1986 (criminalizing money laundering and structuring), 1990 (establishing FinCEN), 1992 (introducing Suspicious Activity Reports), and 2001 (the biggest make-over with the USA... 

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How financial institutions can help end elder financial exploitation

June 18, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

Elder financial exploitation (EFE) may be the crime of the 21st century. The available numbers paint a scary picture: one 2015 report indicated seniors are defrauded of nearly $36.5 Billion annually, over 12 times the amount previously reported. In August... 

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Key Takeaways from FFIEC Updated CDD Examination Procedures

June 12, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

On May 11, 2018, the FFIEC released new Customer Due Diligence (CDD) Examination procedures that reflect and codify the requirements of FinCEN’s final CDD rule. These updates detail how financial institutions must establish appropriate risk-based CDD procedures to understand the... 

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Improving your risk-based CDD with intelligent categorization

April 17, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

2018 updates to Customer Due Diligence requirements have increased regulatory emphasis on how BSA/AML departments must conduct ongoing customer due diligence. The FFIEC BSA/AML Examination Manual states that AML programs, at a minimum, are required to implement: appropriate risk-based procedures... 

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Optimizing high-risk customer management and ongoing due diligence

March 20, 2018 by Nasdaq Verafin

An already challenging BSA/AML compliance risk environment continues to grow in complexity, as financial institutions seek to meet requirements for due diligence on higher-risk categories of customers. Without question, risk management is at the forefront of today’s regulatory scrutiny. In...