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- UK Launches Cold Call Consultation
- Ant Group And Standard Chartered Sign Sustainability Agreement
- Dubai Slaps Mirabaud Bank With $3m Fine
- FCA Use Consumer Duty To Berate Banks Over Savings Rates
- US Treasury Reveals Regulatory Agenda
- Stripe Integrates With Google Calendar’s Event Creation Widget
- US Senators Propose Bigtech Law
- UK And Singapore Enhance Cooperation On Fintech
- Incomplete Payments Pile Up As Co-op Bank Responds To Outage
UK Launches Cold Call Consultation
The UK government is consulting on plans to ban all cold calling for consumer financial services and products.
As an extension of the current ban on pensions cold calling, the government has said any product or service of a banking or payment nature, including electronic money and crypto-assets, is in scope.
The proposed ban follows the government’s April 2023 fraud strategy. The consultation will explore how best to design and implement the ban to prevent scam calls from reaching the public, while allowing legitimate and beneficial communications from businesses to continue.
The consultation also includes a call for evidence to collect information and data that will allow a more rigorous assessment of the effects on businesses.
Stakeholders have until September 27 to respond.
Ant Group And Standard Chartered Sign Sustainability Agreement
Ant Group and Standard Chartered have entered into a new agreement to deepen their partnership in driving green and inclusive finance, global fund management and sustainable development.
Both parties will jointly contribute to tackling global issues such as climate change and ocean protection.
Ant Group and Standard Chartered are long-term partners. The bank first signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Chinese fintech giant in 2017.
“We have always been committed to using technology to assist SMEs in their digital transformation journeys, and jointly promoting global sustainable and inclusive development,” said Eric Jing, CEO of Ant Group.
“Together with our ecosystem partners, we look forward to expanding our cooperation with Standard Chartered, and further leveraging the expertise from both sides in digital technology, green finance and inclusive finance, to make greater contributions to global sustainable development.”
Dubai Slaps Mirabaud Bank With $3m Fine
The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has imposed an AED11m ($3m) fine on Mirabaud (Middle East) for inadequate anti-money laundering (AML) systems and controls.
Between June 2018 and October 2021, the company processed several transactions despite a number of red flags that should have raised suspicions of money laundering.
The DFSA said the activities “exhibited characteristics similar to those commonly seen in the layering phase of a money laundering operation”.
For instance, the bank opened accounts for seemingly unconnected entities operated by a small group of closely connected individuals.
The transactions were overly complex and inconsistent with the nature of the accounts and the information known about the customers.
“Although Mirabaud put in place AML policies and procedures, they were ineffective,” the regulator said.
The group of nine interconnected client accounts that the DFSA said could be connected to money laundering was managed by the same relationship manager at Mirabaud.
That manager, as well as the persons who held the roles of senior executive officer and chief compliance officer during the time of the failures, have since left the bank.
The fine includes disgorgement of AED3.5m ($975,000), which represents Mirabaud’s gains from its contraventions in the form of fees and commission.
FCA Use Consumer Duty To Berate Banks Over Savings Rates
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has announced that it is using its new Consumer Duty policy to push banks into “passing on interest rate rises to savers appropriately”.
The FCA found that although interest rates on savings accounts have been rising, this has been happening more slowly for easy access accounts.
Nine of the biggest savings providers, on average, only passed through 28 percent of the base rate rise to their easy access deposits between January 2022 and May 2023, for example.
Firms offering the lowest savings rates will be required to justify by the end of August how those rates offer fair value, according to the Consumer Duty, and if they cannot, the FCA has said that it will be taking action.
“We welcome the progress that has been made so far but this needs to speed up,” said Sheldon Mills, consumers and competition director at the FCA.
“We will be using the Consumer Duty to ensure this is the case, with firms required to prove to us that they are offering their customers fair value.”
US Treasury Reveals Regulatory Agenda
The US Treasury has released its semi-annual regulatory agenda, which includes several mentions of cryptocurrencies and progress in adopting key anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
Before the year-end, in December, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), part of the Treasury, is expected to publish a proposed rule that creates national exam and supervision priorities pursuant to the US Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020.
The proposed rule includes a risk assessment requiring financial institutions to incorporate AML priorities into risk-based programmes, and provide for certain technical changes, according to the filing.
FinCEN will also proceed with the third rule related to setting up a beneficial ownership register.
The first and second rules concern reporting requirements and access authorities, and the third rule will revise the regulator’s customer due diligence (CDD) requirements to account for the changes created by the two other rulemakings.
The access rule is scheduled to be finalised in September, while a draft version of the third rule is expected to be released in November.
The agency is also working on a rule that clarifies that the US money laundering regulatory framework applies to virtual currencies, both in domestic and cross-border transactions.
A draft rule was first published by FinCEN in October 2020, but the agency is now planning to publish a revised proposal by the end of the summer.
Stripe Integrates With Google Calendar’s Event Creation Widget
Stripe has launched a new partnership with Google Workspace that allows users to request and receive payments from customers when setting up an online appointment together.
The new feature, which is built on Stripe Connect and Stripe Checkout, enables customers to pay for services directly while making a booking via Google Calendar.
The integration allows businesses to connect their Stripe account, set a price and then offer their clients the ability to book and pay for services in Google Calendar.
The embedded payments tie-up is similar to Microsoft’s partnership with PayPal, covered by VIXIO, that allows users of Microsoft Teams to make and receive payments within the instant messaging platform.
US Senators Propose Bigtech Law
US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MS) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have introduced comprehensive legislation that would rein in bigtech by establishing a new commission to regulate online platforms.
“For too long, giant tech companies have exploited consumers’ data, invaded Americans’ privacy, threatened our national security, and stomped out competition in our economy,” said Senator Warren.
“This bipartisan bill would create a new tech regulator and makes clear that reining in big tech platforms is a top priority on both sides of the aisle.”
The Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with policing the biggest tech platforms, such as Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon.
The commission would be responsible for overseeing and enforcing the new statutory provisions in the bill and implementing rules to promote competition, protect privacy, protect consumers and strengthen US national security. It would have concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice.
UK And Singapore Enhance Cooperation On Fintech
Innovation, fintech and sustainable finance were high on the agenda at the eighth UK-Singapore financial dialogue summit, which was attended by regulators such as HM Treasury, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The UK and Singapore have now agreed to contribute to efforts to develop global regulatory standards for crypto and digital assets as part of international standard setting bodies such as the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), and working groups under the Financial Stability Board (FSB).
The two jurisdictions also welcomed FSB recommendations on crypto-assets including stablecoins.
The UK and Singapore regulators noted “a productive discussion” on their respective approaches towards central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) with the UK updating on the “digital pound” consultation and plans for the current design phase.
Singapore meanwhile shared its approach towards exploring use cases for a digital Singapore dollar and efforts that are being undertaken to foster interoperability.
Both countries also agreed on “the urgent need” to develop approaches that facilitate and scale financing to support the transition of economies to net zero.
“The UK and Singapore agreed that globally comparable and transparent transition plans that include credible forward-looking information can help reduce fragmentation, scale transition finance, and support sustainability in finance more generally.”
Both countries also stated that they recognise the value of increased regulatory cooperation on transition plans to mobilise real economy emission reductions.
Incomplete Payments Pile Up As Co-op Bank Responds To Outage
The UK’s Co-operative Bank was down for at least three hours last Thursday (July 27) due to a system outage that left payments and balances unresponsive.
The bank, which has over 3m customers in the UK, said it was “working at pace” to resolve the issue on Thursday morning. Three hours later it announced that all of its services are “running as normal” and customers are able to “access their accounts and make payments”.
However, customers continued to complain that attempted payments were being rejected, and that the Co-operative Bank app was either failing to open or was showing incorrect balances.
One customer complained as late as Sunday (July 30) that her app would not open, and that all she could see was a message saying: “Something’s not right. You have been logged out for security reasons.”
