Regulation and Compliance News

ASIC has raised concerns with Citigroup Pty Ltd (‘Citigroup’) that some telephone sales of consumer credit insurance products between August 2008 and January 2009 may have been misleading, or likely to mislead consumers.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) says that a number of banks may not be fully complying with Section 205.16 of Regulation E. It's not happy.

Remember Gramm-Leach-Bliley? It was the Act that got everyone hot and bothered about know your customer with the black helicopter brigade and the ACLU claiming that the real reason banks wanted KYC info was so that they could pass it around the newly authorised complex financial groups and cross-sell to their customers.

Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairwoman Mary Schapiro have announced the Interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has today informed banks in the territory that the FATF has issued a statement relating to various countries. The FATF statement was issued on 16 October.

Australia's FIU, AUSTRAC, has issued its first "Remedial Direction for Non-Compliance." A remittance agent is the subject of the notice having failed "top adopt and maintain an AML / CTF programme."

Two members have resigned from New Zealand's Code Committee of industry representatives that is working on the Code of professional conduct for financial advisers.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority has today issued a circular to residential mortgage lenders and the results of its survey into how Authorised Institutions were complying with previous requirements.

Until 1997, when the zeal of the incoming Labour government decided to remove the supervision of the banking sector to a new - and actually non-existent - centralised agency, the Bank of England supervised UK banks. Its governors have studiously stayed out of the question of regulation. Until now.

The four regulators of the US banking system have issued Financial Institution Letter FIL-59-2009 placing a requirement on US banks to file Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Report) for the 30 September, 2009, report date and reminding them that data must be submitted before 30 October 2009.