While banks work hard to educate their customers about possible card fraud, this is the time of year when another type of fraud comes to front of the line: IRS tax-related fraud is one of the largest fraud issues in the industry. With current losses estimated to fall in the $6 billion range, tax fraud is expected to boom and grow to four times that amount in the very short term.
February 17th, 2016
Effective compliance risk management controls are often more of an art than simply a science. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the requisite exercise of finding and connecting the dots. What “dots”? The dots that aid in the search for intent, the dots that help bridge cause and effect analysis, and the dots that enable the detection and prevention of compliance risk in what are oftentimes complex trading strategies.
January 25th, 2016
As MiFID II requirements begin to rollout and are enforced, you can’t help but notice that a large chunk of the legislation addresses certain technical standards which could change the landscape of the European financial markets. Buried within this rather large directive is a small section that discusses record-keeping requirements. When you dig deeper into this part of the directive you will discover something really interesting. In fact, you will discover that most of the technical requirements clearly suggest the need for a complete communication surveillance program.
January 21st, 2016
It’s tough being a compliance executive these days – regulations are becoming more complex and personal accountability has become an important focus of regulators themselves. Knowing that you could personally be on the hook for a compliance lapse, we’ve prioritized four areas to look at to gain some peace of mind:
January 14th, 2016
One of the biggest unknowns in the financial services world right now surrounds the inability to estimate both the positive and negative impact of virtual currencies on the banking system. Some have argued that virtual currencies, like Bitcoin, are on a disruptive level akin to the internet, whereas others have argued that they could seriously undermine the global currency system and enable rampant crime. Like most things, the truth likely falls somewhere in the middle.
January 12th, 2016
As we start off 2016, one global payments trend we see coming on strong is further expansion of “faster payments” initiatives for retail, commercial, and private banking. Same Day ACH and The Clearing House initiatives in the US market, and the New Payments Platform (NPP) in Australia, are gaining traction and will be game changers that will allow bank product teams to bring unique innovation to the market, ultimately benefiting such things as customer satisfaction and bank reputation.
January 11th, 2016
In my past tenure as an executive with senior risk teams, I reported to, or worked closely with, Chief Risk Offices or Officers at very large global banks. The analysis and insights that these CRO’s must provide across a vast number and types of risk are complex, and this certainly presented even more challenges during events like the 2008 global downturn. With cybercrime on the rise, and digital banking making transactions even faster and more complex, the problems continue to grow at a rapid pace.
December 31st, 2015
2015 was the year of reputational risk. From corruption scandals and fraud investigations to information security issues and data breaches, organizations of all shapes and sizes found themselves scrambling to respond. In this series, Joram Borenstein highlights the top issues that took place in 2015 with “The 12 Days of Reputational Risk.” Check back each day as we reveal the next risk in this series.