April 12, 2016
Finra is beefing up efforts to fight money laundering and expects broker-dealers to do the same at their firms, ThinkAdvisor writes.
In particular, advice firms need to remain vigilant about supervising “high-risk business like micro-caps,” Brad Bennett, executive vice president of enforcement at Finra, said at Sifma’s anti-money laundering conference last week, the web publication writes.
When deciding on enforcement proceedings, Bennet said Finra looks at the rate of recidivism at the broker-dealer in question, its involvement in unlawful activity or willful blindness at detection, steps taken to correct any wrongdoing, and the degree of harm to investors, according to ThinkAdvisor.
While Finra has had anti-money laundering measures as a priority for 11 years in a row, Bennett stressed the need for broker-dealers to continuously tailor their AML supervisory systems to their changing clients and activities, and to be particularly careful when delegating AML monitoring to third parties, a practice he said is common in the industry, ThinkAdvisor writes.