5 Scandalous AML Anti-Money Laundering Fines in 2021 The United Nations estimated that the cost of global money laundering annually is between $800 billion - $2 trillion which makes up 2-5% of global GDP. Unfortunately, only 1% of the money laundered can be detected and acted upon by the authorities. In order to [...]
Opportunities and Challenges of New Technologies for AML/CFT The new and innovative methods, procedures and technologies are being developed constantly for the purpose of the successful, effective and up-to-date implementation of AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and CFT (Combatting the Financing of Terrorism) requirements. Recently, on November 26th, 2021 I was a panel speaker for [...]
Sibos 2021 Highlights SIBOS is the world’s premier financial services event hold by SWIFT where the global financial community comes together each year to hold annually to identify the trends in the payments industry, to visualize the future of cross-border payments and to keep up with the most recent innovative solutions such as AI [...]
UAE KYC Blockchain Consortium When and why was the platform founded?The initiative of the UAE KYC (Know Your Customer) Blockchain Platform was launched in February 2020 by Dubai Economy (Dubai’s Department of Economic Development) together with its founding partner banks. The main motivation behind its foundation is to create a national ecosystem in which the [...]
SWIFT Customer Security Programme What is the Customer Security Program (CSP)? In 2016, the biggest robbery in the banking history was organized by cyber attackers by breaking into the system of the Bangladesh Central Bank. The total amount of transaction instructions was $951M and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York processed the $101M of that [...]
5 Things That Cryptocurrencies Should Know for Anti-Money Laundering ComplianceThe whitepaper of “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto which was published in October 2008 introduced a secure electronic payment system via which the users can transfer values to each other without a need to an intermediary party or a financial institution for [...]
Payments Landscape and the Upcoming ISO 20022 StandardCurrent Payment ChannelsHigh-value payments (RTGS)Together with the invention of the telegraph in the end of 19th century, wires have started to be used in the communication industry although they have not become mainstream until the beginning of the 20th century. With wires becoming widely used, the high-value payments [...]
SWIFT 2021 STANDARD CHANGES – STANDARDS RELEASE GUIDESWIFT 2021 Standards Changes has a comprehensive Release Guide this year due to postponement of changes in several categories caused by pandemic in 2020. Essential changes include six new message types in Guarantees section of Category 7, besides major updates on mutual message types for Letter of Credits [...]
Customer Due Diligence Checklist — 4 Steps to Improve Your CDD Financial institutions are entitled with applying due diligence procedures on their customers to make sure that they are not involved in any activities related to financial crimes. A legitimate and strong Customer Due Diligence (CDD) program is essential to protect the reputation of a [...]
Financial Cyber Crime: How the System is Failing the Victims Financial Cyber Crime Having the Widest Coverage Among All Industries Cyber threats and attacks may differ in their purpose, method and impact; however, the most common ones are malware, hacking, phishing, data extortion and distributed denial of service (DDoS). The attackers’ ultimate aim is to [...]
