Hear from Director Kenneth A. Blanco on FinCEN’s priorities for 2021, including implementation of the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 and potential regulatory amendments to modernize the BSA/AML regulatory regime and to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of AML programs. The discussion will also cover COVID-related frauds, SAR trends, virtual currencies, information sharing and innovation in BSA/AML compliance.

COVID-19 has presented the broker-dealer industry with some unprecedented challenges. The panel will discuss, among other things, the response of government partners, new COVID-related fraud event typologies, surveillance challenges in a time of volatility, and challenges and opportunities for the future.

Everyone has a part to play in detecting, reporting and preventing human trafficking. Broker-dealers have a unique opportunity to utilize their resources and existing frameworks to build an anti-human trafficking program. During this session, we will talk a deep dive into the most common forms of human trafficking and some relevant case studies, red flags and investigative techniques, and discuss best practices firms can implement to make an impact.

Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.) and distributed ledger technology (blockchain) are here to stay and likely to present increasingly complex challenges for AML professionals. This session will explore the different digital assets typologies that present themselves in all types of brokerage firms. We’ll discuss microcap issues such as ICOs and manipulative trading, private and exchange-traded fund creation and custody, prime brokerage hedges and securities lending, and futures and derivatives trading – all against the backdrop of regulator and enforcement statements, guidance, frameworks and actions.

This panel will discuss sanctions policy and enforcement and how they may differ in the Biden Administration from the approaches taken by the Trump Administration.  The panel will look at how U.S. sanctions against China, Venezuela and Russia may evolve and whether the new Administration may make continued use of capital markets-focused sanctions.  The panel will also examine recent compliance challenges and how compliance approaches may be affected by these changes.

Hear directly from regulators and policy makers about developments in the AML and financial crimes space and their regulatory and examination priorities for 2021. Discussion topics will include lessons learned from enforcement matters, new trends and typologies, and expectations for the year ahead, which will provide you with an opportunity to consider changes to your program to address the evolving landscape and current regulatory expectations.

Meet with sponsoring firms specializing in products and services for AML and financial crimes, win prizes and participate in 10-minute AML Learning Labs.

In today’s fast-paced and increasingly digital world, effectively combating financial crime and achieving regulatory compliance demands smarter, faster, and more dynamic tools and solutions. Legacy rules-based systems have limited the efficacy of anti-money laundering (AML) detection and investigation. Financial organizations lack holistic and connected views of parties, accounts, and transactions due to messy and fragmented data, inabilities in harnessing that data, and high numbers of false-positive alerts. Hidden and unknown financial crime risks were often left undetected, and AML investigations became overly complicated, time-consuming, and inefficient. Graph algorithms combined with machine learning offer a more modern, intelligent, and streamlined approach in fighting, monitoring, and investigating illicit activity. These technologies enable a path to connected intelligence and elevated analytics. Financial organizations can improve their understanding of financial risks and optimize AML detection with higher quality alerts that find the suspicious activity missed by other solutions. Investigators can visualize the network of parties, accounts, and transactions to make more informed decisions. The solution has delivered over 10% improvement in AML investigation efficiency.

• Discover how graph technology can dynamically connect parties, accounts, and transactions across disparate data sources, elevating financial crime detection, investigation, and intelligence.
• Learn how connections, patterns, and anomalies can drive productive investigations, inform the prioritization, hibernation, escalation of work and alert activity, and lead to better decision-making.
• Uncover techniques to integrate graph algorithms for machine learning into current financial crime strategies, processes, and systems.

Strengthen your investigation strategy by utilizing technology you already have at your disposal. In this session, we’ll discuss the role that communication surveillance plays in identifying financial crime and how to best leverage it.

Hedge Funds, Private Equity and Advisors: Managing Risk without Regulation
Alma Angotti, Guidehouse partner and Global Legislative and Regulatory Risk Lead is joined by Morgan Stanley’s Timothy Scutero and Paul Tyrrell of Sidley Austin for an engaging and insightful dialogue on managing the risk of hedge funds, private equity and investments advisors, who are currently not subject to the Bank Secrecy Act. We will address the following:

• Money Laundering Risks of Hedge Funds and Private Equity
• Legal Framework
• Managing Risk and AML Responsibilities
• Identifying and Mitigating Risk of Fund Administrators
• 2015 Proposed Rule
• The new AMLA 2020

The amount of money laundered annually through the global financial system is 2-5% of globally GDP, a percentage that hasn’t materially changed for years. Regulators around the world and our industry as a whole recognize the need to do more to fight financial crime. To succeed in protecting the financial system AML professionals in both private and public organizations must work together. Collaboration is key. In this session we focus on collaboration and how working together can help us manage risk across four dimensions of financial crime: Money Laundering, Fraud, Market Abuse, Bribery and Corruption.

If the past year has proven anything, it’s that cryptocurrency isn’t just for criminals. Mainstream
financial institutions and platforms like JP Morgan, PayPal, and Square are getting involved.
Nonetheless, cryptocurrency’s decentralized, semi-anonymous nature has helped shape its
reputation as an untraceable way for criminals to transfer value.

In this session, Kim Grauer, Head of Research at blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, will
break down what crypto crime actually looks like, and answer questions like:

● Is cryptocurrency anonymous?
● How much cryptocurrency activity is illicit?
● What are the dominant forms of cyber crime?
● Is cryptocurrency regulated and how can institutions be compliant?

Proactively catching non-compliant misconduct before fines and crises hit is challenging. It’s even more difficult since the pandemic prompted employees to work from home indefinitely. Learn about the prevalence of remote employee misconduct and why, if left unchecked, it can dramatically, adversely impact businesses, their C-suites, and brand perception.