Report: Lack of Risk Management Puts Small Firms in Danger

From Accounting Web -

“While the majority of businesses want their senior managers to be more involved in risk management, most lack a dedicated program and resources – and that’s particularly true for small and midsized firms.

What’s more, US businesses apparently have fewer risk management systems in place than companies elsewhere in the world.

Those are the key takeaways from a new report, Global State of Enterprise Risk Oversight, by the Enterprise Risk Management Initiative at North Carolina State University, on behalf of the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation. The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) commissioned the study.”

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Sealed HSBC Report Shows U.S. Managers Battling Cleanup Squad

From Bloomberg Business –

“HSBC Holdings Plc, smarting from a $1.9 billion fine for providing banking to money launderers and sanctions-dodgers, promised U.S. officials it would clean up its act.

Within a year, its reform efforts met resistance from leaders of HSBC’s U.S. investment-banking unit - some of whom mounted a campaign of bullying, footdragging and discrediting against in-house watchdogs, according to previously unreported details from a report by the bank’s court-appointed monitor.

HSBC agreed to submit to the monitor’s oversight in late 2012, as part of a pact with the U.S. Justice Department that required it to bolster its in-house controls. Armed with that directive, HSBC compliance officers singled out a half-dozen clients whose activities could put the London-based bank at risk --including a Saudi bank that had been linked to Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers - and advised the U.S. investment-banking division to consider dropping those relationships.”

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How Revised AML Manual Could Affect Bank Risk Management Efforts

From Risk & Compliance Journal –

“The recently revised Bank Secrecy Act (BSA)/Anti-money Laundering (AML) Examination Manual, issued by the Federal Institutions Council (FFIEC), could require enhancements to how U.S.-based banks—and some global banks—comply with AML regulations going forward. Frederick Curry, a Deloitte Advisory principal in Anti-Money Laundering, Deloitte Transactions and Business Analytics LLP, discusses practical implications of the updated manual, including changes to how large transactions are to be reported to the government, heightened AML risk management around “suspicious activity reporting” and continued oversight role of bank boards.”

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