Financial crime

Justice Dept. Vow to Go After Bankers May Prove a Promise Hard to Keep

Banks don’t break the law, bankers do.
That populist lament is now a government directive. The Justice Department this week announced new policies for prosecuting corporate employees, responding to criticism that it has secured huge fines from banks but few indictments of bankers.
The overhaul, Justice Department officials say, may ease some barriers to prosecuting Wall Street cases and pave the way for executive indictments.

Financial crime

Smarter analytics to challenge a new generation of financial criminals

Financial crime is nothing new. Since the dawn of commerce, financial services have struggled against fraud and financial crime. But in today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, increasingly intelligent financial criminals are using modern digital technologies to take advantage of an attack surface that is broader than it has ever been.

The recent white paper IBM Counter Financial Crimes Management gives some idea of the staggering scale—and costs—of modern fraud and financial crime:

• From 2003 to 2012, emerging markets alone saw $6.6 trillion in illicit financial flows.
• Every year, 2 to 5 percent of global GDP is money laundered.
• Organized crime is the origin of 80 percent of cyber crime.