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Failure costs - remediation
Topline financial penalties for rule and law breaches may be in the hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars, but the true price of non-compliance runs far higher once accounts for putting matters right are finally reckoned. Paul Cochrane looks at the business of repairing systems and controls.
Online Published Date:
17 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Social menace - the risk horizon widens
Big tech is itching to add payment service options to lock billions of users onto social media platforms - already exploited for financial crime - still longer but wants to avoid the full demands on obliged entities under anti-money laundering regulation: trying to have it both ways? Paul Cochrane and Raghavendra Verma investigate.
Online Published Date:
17 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Up the learning curve - AML training
Death by PowerPoint should be long past but too often it isn't, even in AML instruction. Keith Nuthall explores best practice in developing knowledge, understanding and skills, now driven by AI.
Online Published Date:
18 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Crypto terrorist financing risks expand, experts warn
Terrorist financing specialists have warned of the increasing role cryptocurrency plays in funnelling money to violent extremists worldwide.
Online Published Date:
19 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
EU sanctions Russian LNG, 3.5 years after invasion of Ukraine
The European Commission has proposed a 19th package of European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia, including a ban on Russian LNG imports by January 2027, as Moscow ramps up its military aggression, including fighter jet and drone incursions into Estonia, Poland and Romania.
Online Published Date:
22 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
ShapeShift digital asset exchange pays US$750,000 over US sanctions violations
A defunct virtual asset exchange, incorporated in Switzerland, headquarters in Denver, Colorado, has settled with the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for apparent violations of sanctions programs covering Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria. ShapeShift AG, now with "limited assets", will pay US$750,000 for 17,183 transactions with users from those jurisdictions, totalling US$12,570,956, which occurred between 19 December 2016 and 9 October 2018.
Online Published Date:
23 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Peken Global crypto exchange fined Can$19.6m for registration and reporting failures
A virtual currency exchange, incorporated in the Seychelles, has been ordered to pay Can$19,552,000 (US$14,023,310) after FINTRAC, the Canadian financial intelligence unit (FIU), found it had not registered as a foreign money services business despite serving Canadian customers, and breached reporting obligations under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act.
Online Published Date:
28 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Swiss parliament waters down AML reforms
The Swiss federal assembly has limited proposed anti-money laundering reforms for legal professionals. A bill, adopted in a final vote on 26 September and expected to take effect in January 2026, has emerged from its passage through the bicameral parliament's two houses, with greatly pared back requirements from an original May 2024 proposal.
Online Published Date:
29 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
UN Security Council signposts rising terrorist financing risk in Africa, maps reforms
The UN Security Council's Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) has warned of major gaps in efforts to combat financing of armed radical groups across 29 African countries, recommending reforms to tackle its increasing risk across the continent.
Online Published Date:
29 September 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Deep and wide - the vast challenge of trade-based money laundering
If law enforcement struggles to find illicit cash, wire and cryptocurrency movements, the challenge in discovering movements of criminal proceeds through fraudulent adjustments in values of traded goods and services is surely tougher still? Can AI help detect trade-based money laundering (TBML) and just how serious is the threat it poses to financial systems? Keith Nuthall finds out.
Online Published Date:
01 October 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
Varengold Bank fined €3.8m in Germany for sustained AML breaches
German regulator BaFin has run out of patience with Varengold Bank AG over its ongoing failure to remedy "serious shortcomings" in anti-money laundering/counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) controls identified in a 2022 inspection and flagged by internal audits for that year and 2023.
Online Published Date:
01 October 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025
UBS pays €835 million in end to French tax evasion saga
Swiss bank UBS has finally drawn a line under its long-running tax evasion and aggravated money laundering case in France with an €835 million (US$980 million) settlement.
Online Published Date:
01 October 2025
Appeared in issue:
328 - 01 November 2025