According to top experts in the financial industry, major banks in the United States need to have stricter regulations when it comes to preventing instances of money laundering. Financial crimes are increasingly common both in the U.S. and the international community, with many figuring out how to manipulate the system in order to steal or launder money from their place of work. To prevent further damage to the slowly recovering global economy, major financial institutions need to have somebody in place to regulate what business is done and who it is done with.
Earlier this week, Comptroller of the Currency Timothy Curry said there were blurred lines of accountability at major banks in the United States, which has harmed government regulators' abilities to investigate who is responsible for a company's failure to follow anti-money laundering rules.
"Management at large banks needs to eliminate these accreted compliance weaknesses so that institutional structural flaws do not become an excuse for a lack of accountability," Curry said to a group of anti-money laundering specialists.
Compliance with these laws has become a big issue for those in the world of high finance recently, particularly after London-based HSBC Holdings was forced to pay $1.9 billion in 2012 to settle allegations it had deliberately disobeyed money laundering laws when doing business with countries under economic sanctions from the United States.
JPMorgan Chase – one of the biggest financial holdings companies in the U.S. and the world – had to settle charges in 2013 that it ignored anti-money laundering laws in its business dealings with the convicted Bernie Madoff, who is in prison for running a massive Ponzi scheme. Because of these high-profile crimes, the need for a senior executive at banks dedicated to preventing money laundering is at an all-time high. Curry believes the need for regulations at major banks is greater than the number of qualified people available.
