Banking + Finance

Last month the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) imposed a fine on Kraken, one of the largest digital asset exchanges in the United States. The CFTC asserted that Kraken was illegally offering margined retail commodity transactions in digital assets, including Bitcoin, and failed to register as a futures commission merchant.

This has resulted in concern over whether it is possible to offer cryptocurrency futures and derivatives to retail customers in the U.S. In this video, Jeffrey Alberts, co-chair of Pryor Cashman's FinTech Group, discusses the Kraken fine and what crypto companies should do to avoid penalties.

Regulators have been ramping up enforcement actions based on cybersecurity program deficiencies.  In this video, Jeffrey Alberts, co-chair of Pryor Cashman's Financial Institutions Group, discusses the types of enforcement actions we have seen so far this year and what regulated businesses can do now to reduce the risk of facing a cybersecurity enforcement action.

OFAC’s statement about when banks can reallocate sanctions compliance resources has confused compliance professionals. As Jeffrey Alberts discusses in this video, the announcement’s legal effect is minimal, but it still provides practical guidance to banks.

The Libra Association’s new white paper contains radical changes in how the proposed Libra payments system will function. As Jeffrey Alberts discusses in this video, the new proposal is arguably less ambitious than the one they circulated last June, which was excoriated by politicians, regulators, and thousands of angry bloggers posting from their basements. The new proposal is aimed at satisfying the politicians and regulators but will leave the bloggers angry.

A new version of the BSA/AML Manual was released this week. Here are a few thoughts on how the new manual may be helpful for banks and FinTechs.

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Jeffrey Alberts, co-head of Pryor Cashman’s Financial Institutions Group, examines the findings of Danske Bank’s internal investigation report and discusses the key takeaways for foreign banks doing business in the United States.

Partner Jeffrey Alberts provides an overview of the intra-agency appeals process.

Recently, Chilean and Brazilian governmental agencies have begun investigating banks for refusing to offer bank accounts to cryptocurrency companies.

On May 17, 2018 the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency made public a Notice of Charges filed against Rabobank’s former Chief Compliance Officer, Laura Akahoshi. The central allegations against Ms. Akahoshi are that she failed to comply with the OCC examiners’ requests and concealed a draft audit report that found deficiencies in Rabobank’s BSA/AML program.