He contends, though, that if systems to combat money laundering are found wanting, the bank could be subjected to increased regulatory scrutiny and to the costs involved in getting up to scratch. But BoNY was never charged for its part in an apparent Russian money-laundering scheme, and has not been fined. The whole world knows they were, but it just hasn t been proven. So, while the financial rewards of the current level of monitoring outweigh the potential losses, there appears to be little incentive for banks to try harder. The OCC s Stipano suggests that banks have a moral duty to share the government s concerns.
Money laundering is itself a bad thing.
It s basically turning a blind eye to criminally derived funds. Perhaps banks should be putting that on the agenda of the next Morality Committee meeting. All rights reserved.