Inadequate monitoring

The Washington Post carried a story on a Senate hearing on money laundering, one example being HSBC. The criticism was aimed at the OCC regulators who failed to pursue the issue.  Also notice the fuss is over a foreign bank.

The U.S. affiliate of global banking giant HSBC was for years a haven for foreign money laundering, drug-trafficking money and potential terrorist financing activities, largely because of the bank’s woefully inadequate monitoring practices, according to a 340-page Senate report scheduled for release Tuesday. 

The report chastises the bank’s primary U.S. regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, for failing to take more aggressive enforcement measures against the bank after the OCC became aware of illicit activities.

Please save us from a Senate that cut the budget for an agency, and specifically for its enforcement arm by the head of the agency (mainly John Dugan’s watch), and who vigorously pushed deregulation and  federalization over state rules concerning consumers…and then wonders out loud why the ‘bad’ guys aren’t dealt justice.