2021 was another bumper year for fines slapped against financial institutions (FIs) for failures in anti-money laundering (AML) compliance. AML shortcomings in transaction monitoring are a global problem. Countries whose banks were hit with fines include the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, [...]
RegTech is getting more attention in the fintech ecosystem this year, alongside the surge in cross-border money transfers and expansion of digital transfer platforms. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the popularity of electronic payments is spiking both the volume and complexity of financial [...]
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Cyber Week, Black November, Christmas and New Year’s vacations, aka the commercial part of the “Holiday Season.” For shoppers, retailers, and holidaymakers, it’s one of the most satisfying times of the year. For banks and payment service providers, however, the [...]
Competition is heating up in the low-cost international money transfer business, with new fintechs putting pressure on the traditional MTOs and incumbent banks. It’s the 31st of the month. A migrant worker working in the Gulf waits in his employer’s office to receive his monthly wages. With [...]
Art is an increasingly attractive avenue for money launderers, and legislators have taken notice Deep in the night at a major European port, a high-end security company guard is on his shift in a warehouse watching over multi-million-dollar art pieces held in storage. Unbeknownst to him, one of the [...]
The first money laundering activities to run through mobile apps took place over ten years ago when 20 of the top 25 downloaded applications in the Danish Apple App Store were downloaded from China and cost between $50 and $100 each. The laundering activity was fairly simple. Criminals created the [...]
On its surface, de-risking banking activities is a justifiable move. Rather than attempt to manage the risk, banks choose instead to avoid risk. With that move, they sidestep past onerous regulator penalties, reputation-tarnishing headlines, and angry shareholders and customers. The result, of [...]
There is a great romanticism about the unknown unknown. It sits there on the edge just beyond our knowledge and understanding. North America, before Columbus sailed there in 1492, was an unknown unknown to Europeans. Travels can take us to unknown places, and while there, we often find ourselves [...]
With over 4000 leaked SARS that were involved with 2000 banks, turns out most of the SARs were related to cross border activity, a well-known “blind spot” in the banking world. Over the past several years, large schemes revealed the financial systems failure- with billions of dollars [...]
Global economy is facing real challenges with cross border payments, Financial Institutions lost trust in their counter-parties and their AML controls, De-risking and slow business are no longer needed-with ThetaRay financial institutions can gain trust back and support growth with [...]