On 22 January 2026, the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee published a stark verdict on the state of artificial intelligence in UK financial services. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Bank of England and HM Treasury, the Committee concluded, are not doing enough to manage the risks presented by AI. By adopting a wait-and-see approach, the authorities are exposing consumers and the financial system to potentially serious harm. The Committee’s Chair, Dame Meg

The US Department of the Treasury has moved to sever Swiss lender MBaer Merchant Bank AG from the US financial system, citing its alleged role in facilitating illicit finance linked to Iran and Russia. In a notice of proposed rulemaking published on 26 February 2026, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) set out plans that would prohibit covered US financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts for, or on behalf of, MBaer. The proposed a

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued a limited exemptive relief order for certain financial institutions subject to its Geographic Targeting Order (GTO) covering Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, Minnesota. The GTO, which took effect on 12 February 2026, introduced enhanced recordkeeping and reporting requirements designed to support efforts to combat government benefits fraud. The targeted relief refines the scope of reporting obligations to ensure that t

For two decades, the compliance officer has occupied a paradoxical space within financial institutions: indispensable yet often isolated, empowered by regulation but constrained by corporate politics. The role was conceived in the aftermath of global scandals that exposed the fragility of internal oversight, from money-laundering networks that thrived on professional complacency to governance structures that prised revenue over responsibility. The compliance function became t

The conviction of former Corsa Coal Corporation vice president Charles Hunter Hobson marks a significant Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement outcome for the Department of Justice (DoJ), reinforcing the risks facing senior executives engaged in overseas sales involving state-linked counterparties. The case centred on nearly $140 million in coal supply contracts with Egypt’s Al Nasr Company for Coke and Chemicals, a state-owned and state-controlled enterprise, and

The Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has fined Bank of Ireland UK plc (BOIUK) £3,779,300 for failing to implement Confirmation of Payee (CoP) within the mandated timeframe, leaving more than 1.14 million new payees and £6.9 billion in payments without the safeguard. The enforcement action relates to BOIUK’s failure to comply with the ‘send’ requirements under paragraph 3.1 of Specific Direction 17 (SD17). As a Group 1 payment service provider (PSP), BOIUK was required to have

For decades, anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, and sanctions compliance have been treated as distinct disciplines. Each has its own regulators, specialists, and compliance programmes, all designed to address specific manifestations of financial crime. Yet in practice, these systems respond to the same underlying pathology: the misuse of power and opacity to extract value from the state. As the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sharpens its focus on beneficial ownership an

On 13 February 2026, the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued exceptive relief under the 2016 Customer Due Diligence (CDD) Rule, significantly reducing duplicative beneficial ownership requirements for covered financial institutions. The order removes the obligation for institutions to identify and verify the beneficial owners of a legal entity customer every time that customer opens a new account. Instead, beneficial ownership

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has launched a dedicated whistleblower webpage to confidentially receive tips relating to fraud, money laundering and sanctions violations. The move strengthens the United States Department of the Treasury’s intelligence-led enforcement framework and signals a continued focus on leveraging insider information to combat financial crime. FinCEN’s Office of the Whistleblower will accept information concerning violations and consp

A newly unsealed indictment in the District of Vermont has exposed the operational mechanics of a transnational human smuggling and money laundering scheme that exploited the US-Canada border and the US financial system. The case underscores the growing convergence between organised immigration crime, encrypted communications and transactional laundering activity. Francisco Antonio Luna Rosado, a Dominican national unlawfully present in the United States, and Jesus Hernandez

The sentencing of Paxful Holdings Inc marks one of the clearest judicial warnings yet to virtual asset trading platforms that anti-money laundering failures will be treated as criminal conduct, not regulatory oversight. On 11 February 2026, the US Department of Justice confirmed that the peer-to-peer crypto platform was ordered to pay a $4 million criminal penalty after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the Travel Act, the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and operating an unlic

RegTech was born out of necessity, not ideology. After the 2008 financial crisis and a decade of compliance expansion, institutions reached a saturation point. Technology promised relief — a way to automate the repetitive, the reportable, the measurable. But as systems grew faster, the ethics grew quieter. Today, financial institutions are realising that automation without integrity is not progress. It is drift. The question that defines this moment in regulatory technology i