Last week, HSBC paid a $1.92 billion penalty for laundering money for murderers. Today, UBS is fined $1.5 billion for its part in rigging LIBOR over a multiyear period! While these banks will now “beef up their compliance procedures” and fire some traders, unless top management serves prison time, these toothless penalties are simply a cost of doing business and will fail miserably in deterring criminal activity in the future.
Tag Archives: HSBC
Doing the Laundry
After failing to monitor trillions (with a T) in wire transfers over a period of years, from very unsavory characters and regimes, HSBC agreed to a $1.92 billion settlement. HSBC encouraged vast illegal transactions because there’s so much money to be laundered, profits are very good and the chances of being caught are low as regulators are weak. Thus, there will be more banks caught doing laundry in the future.