A library of snippets
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The 6AMLD will further expand on the number of crimes that are categorised as money laundering. ‘Aiding and abetting’ now falls under the money laundering bracket and enforces the same criminal punishment as money laundering.
From 6th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (6AMLD): Biggest Changes | Emerging Payments UK:
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MORRISONS shoppers have complained of issues paying for their shopping at many stores across the country.
Some customers were left unable to pay for their food shop with a card or use contactless payments.
From Morrisons shoppers unable to pay for food with card or contactless due to payment issues:
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Morrisons shoppers unable to pay for food with card or contactless due to payment issues https://buff.ly/2YdvOG4 <- this is why electronic cash infrastructure should be built in parallel with, not on top of, the electronic money infrastructure
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Luis Corrons, a security expert with cyber firm Avast, said the company has seen an uptick in QR code scams since COVID-19 brought the nascent technology back into the spotlight.
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“This stablecoin will allow companies to use smart contracts on Sber’s platform based on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. Tokenizing both material goods and fiat money on this platform will allow transactions to be fully automatic,” the Sber press office said.
From Russia’s Sber Bank Files to Launch Its Own Stablecoin | Nasdaq:
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Heathrow says it is ‘impossible’ for passengers to be socially-distanced as travellers returning to the UK blast hour-long queues on another day of chaos after negative Covid test rule was enforced
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Contactless payments accounted 88.6% of total card payments in 2020 as restrictions on contact-based payments drove people to the payment method
From Nine out of 10 UK card payments in 2020 were contactless:
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Such collaboration among banks has only recently become possible thanks to technology allowing institutions to share algorithms but keep data private.
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Money-mule schemes are also becoming less detectable, because of the diversification of labor in how stolen money is moved through payment systems and banks. Data-privacy rules make it difficult to trace money once it has left one bank for another, and no single financial institution can see an entire end-to-end payment as it flows through the banking network.
What can be done? Financial institutions must use artificial-intelligence and machine-learning technology to analyze publicly available information that their typical screening tools don’t search. This will enable better identity verification and should help banks spot account holders with histories of fraudulent activities.
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However, these findings appear consistent with other possibilities, for example, that “banks are a much easier target for regulators” (Pol 2019c) than criminals. If authorities recover around $3 billion per annum from criminals, whilst imposing compliance costs of $300 billion and penalizing businesses another $8 billion a year, it is reasonable to ask if the real target of anti-money laundering laws is legitimate enterprises rather than criminal enterprises.
It is reasonable also to ask whether ordinary citizens are harmed more than banks and criminals, at least financially, by laws ostensibly aimed at financial crime. After all, banks typically pass their costs on to shareholders and customers – in lower dividends, higher fees, lower interest rates for savers, and higher rates for borrowers. Moreover, taxpayers pay the costs of government, including scores of international agencies involved in the anti-money laundering agenda, and up to several dozen government agencies in each of 205 countries and jurisdictions. Individuals, communities, economies, and society also suffer the economic and social harms from serious crime.
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the current anti-money laundering policy prescription helps authorities intercept about $3 billion of an estimated $3 trillion in criminal funds generated annually (0.1 percent success rate), and costs banks and other businesses more than $300 billion in compliance costs, more than a hundred times the amounts recovered from criminals.
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