The AML community is guilty of tolerating the failing status quo, and very few have dared to confront, challenge, and disrupt the inefficient and ineffective practices. A proactive approach could be the solution, writes Martin Woods.
Martin Woods
Posted inAnti-Bribery
Best practices KYC: What to do when your client is in the headlines
How do we, as AML professionals, assess negative media alerts? It should start with a conversation with the client relationship manager, but it shouldn’t end there, writes Martin Woods.
Posted inAccounting & Auditing
What the Wirecard story tells us about red flags, healthy skepticism
How we came to learn about the fraud allegedly perpetrated by Wirecard offers important lessons in compliance and corporate governance, writes financial crime expert Martin Woods.
Posted inRisk Management
We’re losing the war on AML, and big consultancies aren’t helping
Financial crimes expert Martin Woods writes that, in his experience, the big consultancy firms have made a substantial negative contribution to global AML endeavors.
Posted inInternal Investigations
‘I don’t know’ is among a compliance officer’s strongest statements
Martin Woods explains how saying “I don’t know” helped him to learn and elicit the truth during his time as a financial crime compliance officer.
Posted inAML
Hat tip to HSBC for stopping money laundering, saving lives
If you’re in search of proof that what you do matters, look no further than the AML efforts of HSBC in preventing $500 million from reaching the bank accounts of criminals, writes Martin Woods.
Posted inEthics & Culture
Wells Fargo must do more than pay to redeem fake account scandal
Wells Fargo is now operating under a different regime, but what have the billions of dollars the bank has spent in attending to the compliance failures that arose out of its fake account scandal delivered? Not enough, posits Martin Woods.
Posted inEthics & Culture
Having difficult conversations is key to modern compliance
Now more than ever, difficult conversations are necessary and increasingly expected of compliance professionals. Financial crime expert Martin Woods has some ideas on how to make them less painful.
Posted inRisk Management
Common-sense KYC: Customers should supply the knowledge
No one knows a customer better than the customer. As such, financial crime expert Martin Woods believes the onus should be on the customer to provide the required data to keep KYC logs up to date.
Posted inEthics & Culture
Firms must apply contact tracing rules to bank relationships
In order to prevent debacles like the one Deutsche Bank is embroiled in, there is a need to combine the processes of “know your employee” and “know your customer,” writes Martin Woods.