In light of the Wirecard and HSBC scandals, do more senior members find themselves harking back to the 20th century and feel that that was a cleaner period in the financial industry?
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It was never cleaner earlier, it's just that we get to hear more often about the dirty linen now.
The HSBC scandal (i presume you mean the story which cane out yesterday) does not just affect HSBC but other banks seem to be culpable.
I hope with the leaks that they keep the identities of the individuals who make the SARs anonymous.
I understand your point. The SARs referred to in the latest publicity are not UK SARs - they are US SARs. They were apparently brought together as part of a US enquiry into Russian influence in the US.
The ones made public generally refer to very large sums of money derived from Russia or Eastern Europe.
So, whilst fully appreciating your concern, these are not the sort of SARs that AWeb members are filing with the NCA in the UK.
David
David you make an interesting point about US SARs, but my understanding is that UK SARs are based on the US model. The US has had some form of SAR since the 1970's and reporting and tipping off rules are very similar between both jurisdictions.
As ever, with the recent press furore, there's much more to this story that isn't being made public and I wonder if the FBI will be next on the target list if they haven't acted on the SARs published (a complaint too often made by the accounting profession following seeming inaction from the NCA here in the UK).
I was really directing my mind to AWeb members who might be concerned that their SAR about Bob the Builder doing cash jobs might be splashed across the local newspaper.
The NCA department that deals with SARs is basically a massive filing cabinet, open to inspection by HMRC etc. The NCA won't act against Bob the Builder, they would leave that to HMRC.
The global climate has become less tolerant of financial crime and of those who facilitate it:
- More activities are deemed criminal and legislation has been strengthened - for example the UK Bribery Act only dates to 2010. In the US, the FCPA was passed in 1977 but enforcement was fairly lightweight until the 2000s.
- A t the same time, the obligations on financial institutions and others have grown - there didn't used to be any KYC or AML requirements on accountants, for example.