Fortent Inform Releases Comprehensive U.S. Banking Enforcement Action Survey of 2008, 2007

Anti-Money Laundering Enforcement Actions Fell 16 Percent in 2008; Capital and Lending Violations Soared

NEW YORK, April 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The number of federal enforcement actions against financial institutions over poor anti-money laundering compliance programs fell by over 16 percent in 2008 from the previous year, according to Fortent Inform data.

“It isn’t that the regulators got soft on AML or compliance officers. The dip in AML actions coincides with an explosion in enforcement actions for lending and capital requirements violations,” said Kieran Beer, editor-in-chief of Fortent Inform and moneylaundering.com.

Bank regulators — including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) and the Federal Reserve Board — issued a total of 51 enforcement actions relating to anti-money laundering (AML) in the last calendar year.

Including the New York State Banking Department (NYSBD), one of the most aggressive state regulators against financial institutions, the 2008 percentage drop in AML penalties and actions was greater, down 22.7 percent from a 2007 total of 66 actions.

The total AML-related penalties exacted by the federal regulators and the NYSBD fell by 58 percent in 2008, to a total of $27.9 million.

The decrease in AML-related enforcement actions in 2008 coincided with a shift in focus to lending and capital requirements violations, according to Steven Katz, a former senior official in the FDIC’s liquidation division.

Federal enforcement actions that addressed AML, lending or capital requirements jumped 119 percent last year, to 283, from the 2007 total of 129, according to Fortent Inform data. The OCC, which issued 97 such actions in 2008, saw the biggest jump, at 246 percent, while the FDIC increased its enforcements by over 90 percent, issuing 99 last year.

This first annual Fortent Inform and moneylaundering.com enforcement action survey is based-on a comprehensive collection of the enforcement actions by the four main banking regulators and the NYSBD on Inform. Enforcement data, which is collected on a real-time basis, was double-checked against that provided on the regulator Web sites.

In a few cases, Fortent Inform‘s methodology for cataloguing enforcement actions differed from the regulators. For example, one Federal Reserve action is listed as a 2008 enforcement action, although it was signed and effective in 2007 and appears on the Fortent Inform Web site with the latter date.

The Fortent Inform database contains nearly 1,000 enforcement actions dating back to the 1990s, but it contains all banking actions for 2007 and 2008. The site also contains almost 4,000 regulatory and legislative documents with briefs or longer summaries that are added daily.

For more information or comment on the enforcement action survey, contact Kieran Beer at 1-212-378-1424 or k.beer@fortent.com.

About Fortent

Fortent provides risk and compliance solutions to financial institutions, government agencies, and individuals in more than 100 countries. It has relationships with more than 400 institutional clients, including 26 of the world’s 30 largest financial firms, which use Fortent technology in over 50,000 locations worldwide.

Fortent combines award-winning technology innovation and expertise in regulatory risk to help financial institutions improve productivity and protect hundreds of millions of accounts from financial crimes, including money laundering, terrorist financing, and fraud.

Through its information and training businesses, Fortent delivers the world’s leading sources of regulatory news, analysis, and guidance. Fortent Inform serves as a groundbreaking regulatory information management tool for institutions in the U.S. Moneylaundering.com (and, in Spanish, lavadodinero.com) is the top-ranked site for money laundering news across the globe. In addition to producing the world’s largest money laundering conference and exhibition, Fortent offers the industry’s leading professional certification program, career planning tools, web seminars, and conferences in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

Fortent’s global team operates from key offices in New York, Miami, Atlanta, London, and Tokyo. For further information, visit http://www.fortent.com.

SOURCE Fortent