The weather may be cooling, but the summer of money laundering is far from over. Well, there hasn’t really been an uptick in banks looking the other way on dirty money (they have for years), it’s that regulators are finally stepping up.
Thomas J. Curry, the Comptroller of the Currency.
The attention to money laundering began with a shocking report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which revealed that HSBC had systematically laundered money to terrorists and criminals. The result? Nothing. HSBC has yet to pay a fine or face significant regulation.
Instead, the charge was taken up by New York-based regulator Benjamin Lawsky when he fined Standard Chartered $340 million dollars for letting Iranian businesses illegally access the U.S. financial system. The fine was exacted by the quick and aggressive action by Lawsky’s Department of Financial Services, which, reportedly, irritated other regulators who were moving at a glacial pace.
