Thursday, November 28, 2019

Nathan Lynch - Swerving SWIFT: the story behind Westpac’s money-laundering calamity

Australian, but believed to be a transnational problem.

Bankrolling pedophiles, facilitating massive money-laundering schemes and terrorist-financing have branded Westpac, deservingly, an instant pariah of the banking world. As regulatory intelligence expert Nathan Lynch reveals here however, Westpac is unlikely to be alone. The story behind the story is industrial scale tax avoidance, the concealing of enormous cross-border payments.


Armstrong said the AUSTRAC case was going to be a landmark prosecution.

“The $2 trillion that is laundered through the financial system every year is a major public policy issue, some of which ends up flowing into socially destructive activities like financing terrorism,” he said.

“Based on where we currently sit, we believe that bank internal systems and processes need to change. Most banks are reticent because they fear this is a complex and costly problem to solve. That isn’t necessarily the case. Technology is rapidly emerging to address many of these problems swiftly and easily.”


MW

Nathan Lynch - Swerving SWIFT: the story behind Westpac’s money-laundering calamity

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