the AffirmX blog

Why Now is Actually a Smart Time to Review Your Bank’s Pandemic Plan

AffirmX has long been the leading solution provider of compliance and risk assessment services delivered remotely. We pioneered the off-site approach to ongoing compliance services delivered remotely as a more cost-effective and efficient solution. But with the recent uncertainty surrounding the potential impacts of COVID-19, remotely delivered services make even more sense. Being in the [...]

By |2020-03-18T16:43:41-04:00March 10th, 2020|Blog, Specials|Comments Off on Why Now is Actually a Smart Time to Review Your Bank’s Pandemic Plan

Phantom AML Alerts: Dealing with the Stuff of BSA Officers’ Nightmares

For many Bank Secrecy Act officers and their boards of directors, the thing that haunts their dreams most is their examiners finding some suspicious transactions that should have been investigated, but weren't. If such transactions are found, what typically follows are two questions along the lines of: Why weren't these transactions identified by the institution [...]

By |2020-02-13T13:55:31-05:00February 13th, 2020|Blog, Compliance Tips|Comments Off on Phantom AML Alerts: Dealing with the Stuff of BSA Officers’ Nightmares

Elder Financial Exploitation: What You Need to Know

Advances in technology make it difficult to know what is safe and who to trust, especially for the elderly population. This makes them prime targets for fraudsters. In fact, it is estimated that about 5 million seniors were swindled for nearly $3 billion in the last year alone. Taking this down to a more individual [...]

By |2019-12-16T13:24:41-05:00December 16th, 2019|Blog, Compliance Tips|Comments Off on Elder Financial Exploitation: What You Need to Know

Suspicious Activity Reporting and Business Email Compromise

FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, doesn't publish too many alerts. In fact, for the first half of 2019, it had published only nine news items. So when it published three on a single day in July 2019 on one subject alone, it's clear that one subject had gotten its attention. The focus of this [...]

By |2019-08-23T11:17:29-04:00August 23rd, 2019|Blog, Compliance Tips|Comments Off on Suspicious Activity Reporting and Business Email Compromise

True Beneficiaries and BSA

FinCEN recently highlighted the work of a financial institution that involved Suspicious Activity Reporting and Currency Transaction Reporting as it pertains to true beneficiaries. In this case, the bad actors recruited heroin addicts to steal certain types of goods from stores in the Chicago area. They exchanged their stolen goods for cash from small stores [...]

By |2019-08-14T15:51:02-04:00August 14th, 2019|Compliance Tips|Comments Off on True Beneficiaries and BSA

How SARs Helped Bring Down a Scam Biodiesel Fuel Producer Network

by Ken Agle The more front line and BSA personnel understand about the how Suspicious Activity Reporting and Currency Transaction Reports fit into the overall equation of tracking down criminals, terrorists and other bad actors, the more likely it is for a financial institution’s BSA program to be effective. Understanding context helps keep BSA reporting [...]

By |2019-06-19T16:15:28-04:00June 19th, 2019|Compliance Tips, Uncategorized|Comments Off on How SARs Helped Bring Down a Scam Biodiesel Fuel Producer Network

Next Level Risk-Based Pricing is Coming: Beyond Decisioning and Pricing is Outcome Analysis

When economic times are good and funds are relatively easy to lend without meaningful short-term risk, most financial institutions find themselves in strong positions from a credit risk and earnings perspective. Yet, the tough lessons of lending and risk over the past 30 years have taught us many times over that economic cycles repeat. It’s [...]

By |2019-05-30T22:12:39-04:00October 25th, 2018|Blog, Compliance Tips|Comments Off on Next Level Risk-Based Pricing is Coming: Beyond Decisioning and Pricing is Outcome Analysis

Compliance Abhors a Vacuum – If the Void Is Filled with Heightened BSA Scrutiny, Would You Be Ready?

Originally appeared in CBIZ Insights While a climate of regulatory relief sweeps across the industry, it is a prudent compliance officer who keeps both feet on the ground and considers what risks such a climate could possibly present. Beyond awareness that regulatory enforcement is cyclical and subject to potentially rapid changes based on external or [...]

By |2018-07-31T11:03:56-04:00July 31st, 2018|Compliance Tips|Comments Off on Compliance Abhors a Vacuum – If the Void Is Filled with Heightened BSA Scrutiny, Would You Be Ready?

How Would You Describe the Complaint Management Process at Your Institution?

Find out how you could have free ongoing access to AffirmX's complaint management solution. Would you describe the complaint management solution at your financial institution as (a) hopelessly complicated, or (b) something you make up as you go? We hear from more and more financial institutions that examiners are looking at how they're set up [...]

By |2019-05-30T22:13:36-04:00July 16th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off on How Would You Describe the Complaint Management Process at Your Institution?

To Keep or To Shred: Introducing the 2018 Record Retention Schedule

See below for information about how to get a free copy of the newly updated 2018 Record Retention Schedule... To shred, or not to shred – now that is the real question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of an examiner who finds you shred too soon, or to [...]

By |2020-02-20T12:18:15-05:00May 8th, 2018|Blog|Comments Off on To Keep or To Shred: Introducing the 2018 Record Retention Schedule