Financial Transparency Coalition

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee held a hearing titled, "Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement." The committee called three regulators to testify: David Cohen, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, United States Department of the Treasury; Thomas Curry, Comptroller, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC); and Jerome H. Powell, Governor, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Today, a Senate Banking Committee hearing will examine the extent, causes, and consequences of banks’ failure to adhere to anti-money laundering laws, and the laxity of regulators who are meant to keep the banks in line. The hearing – entitled “Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement” – follows a string of banking scandals that have raised serious questions about financial institutions’ compliance with anti-money laundering rules. Illicit flows of money through the financial system have been linked to corruption, international drug trafficking organizations, terrorist groups and sanctioned nations.

In December of last year the U.S. Department of Justice discovered that HSBC, a large British bank, “willfully failed” to apply money laundering controls to at least $881 million in drug trafficking proceeds from Mexico and covered up illegal transactions for Burma, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Libya. To escape criminal charges, HSBC admitted to wrongdoing and paid a record $1.92 billion settlement. Yet despite this massive offense, not a single person went behind bars as a result. This wasn’t just a failure of the system or the anonymous bureaucracy of a massive corporation. The investigation revealed that senior HSBC officials...

WASHINGTON, DC – In the wake of recent money laundering compliance failures at major U.S. and international banks, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is currently scheduled to hold a hearing Thursday, March 7, 2013 entitled, “Patterns of Abuse: Assessing Bank Secrecy Act Compliance and Enforcement.” Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel and Director of Government Affairs at Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization, issued the following statement in advance of the hearing.