by Kieran Beer

The Panama Papers are justifiably grabbing headlines based on the number of “A-list” politicians and celebrities, as well as the handful of notorious criminals, that they name. And their sheer volume—11.5 million documents—represents an unparalleled look at the machinations involved in the use and abuse of shell companies, in this case those created by Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. But it’s important to step back and have a little perspective: the use of shell companies for tax evasion, the proceeds of corruption and other crimes detailed in the papers are outrageous, but sadly nothing new.
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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has banned Paul White from performing any function in relation to any regulated financial activity and publicly censured him. Were it not for Mr White’s serious financial hardship, the FCA would have fined him £250,000.
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The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today released a consultative document entitled Revisions to the Basel III leverage ratio framework, and responses to a third set of frequently asked questions (FAQs). Continue reading…

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has today published its annual Business Plan. The Business Plan outlines seven priority themes which will guide how the FCA will use its flexible resources and provide additional focus for the core activities of the organisation.  The seven themes are: pensions, financial crime and anti-money laundering, wholesale financial markets, advice, innovation and technology, firms’ culture and governance, and the treatment of existing customers.
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Media in the Nordic region has portrayed Nordea International Private Banking in Luxembourg as a provider of tax haven structures for its customers. Therefore Nordea wants to make the following statement.
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Edwin Jacobs

For the past six months there have been quite a few ground-breaking developments in the EU’s legal domain of personal data processing. We are referring first and foremost to the General Data Protection Regulation, a new European legal instrument that will be the main tool in the legal arsenal for the protection of personal data. Secondly, in the aftermath of the Schrems-judgement in October last year, the European Union and the United States intensified their work towards a suitable replacement for the Safe Harbour regime, a legal arrangement for transferring personal data from the EU to the US. In February this year these efforts culminated in an “EU-US Privacy Shield”. These developments will have a significant impact on how businesses are allowed to process personal data.
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by Evert-Jan Lammers

Some organizations address integrity issues in the in-house magazine, in balanced scorecards, in board meetings, in their communication to stakeholders. Other organizations don’t. Good versus bad company or proactive versus reactive company. Let’s zoom-in on the pro-active companies, the mature organizations. Their board meetings are not only about the what-and-when, but also about the why-and-how. Participants in these meetings dare to speak-up, empowered and protected by shared values. These meeting rooms are light and clear.

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As compliance professionals, you have all experienced the “compliance effect”. This is when you enter a meeting, elevator, or other business setting and things get a little quiet. The tension goes up…just a little bit. Sales people often deal with similar situations, so using sales strategies can help solve the problem.

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Andy Scherpenberg

We know it is coming. And yet, we aren’t ready. Of course we saw a decline in the use of banking malware. Why would a criminal spend time, effort and money to develop a software that defrauds a banking customer if you can just ask their credentials over the phone? Indeed: low cost, highly efficient social engineering took the fraud world by storm when it proved utterly easy to scare people into revealing their login, password and authentication codes.  Continue reading…

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision today released a consultative document entitled Reducing variation in credit risk-weighted assets – constraints on the use of internal model approaches. The consultative document sets out a proposed set of changes to the Basel framework’s advanced internal ratings-based approach and the foundation internal ratings-based approach. The IRB approaches permit banks to use internal models as inputs for determining their regulatory capital requirements for credit risk, subject to certain constraints. The proposed changes to the IRB approaches are a key element of the regulatory reform programme that the Basel Committee has committed to finalise by end-2016.

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