GRC Report Staff

Swedish Regulator Fines Ikano Bank €12.8 Million for Anti-Money Laundering Failures

Ikano Bank's anti-money laundering problems did not begin with customer due diligence. According to Sweden's financial regulator, they began earlier with the bank's understanding of its own risks. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, Finansinspektionen (FI), has issued the bank a formal remark and imposed an administrative fine of approximately €12.8 million (SEK 140 million) after finding shortcomings in its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework.

APRA Warns Financial Firms to Strengthen Defenses Against Geopolitical Shocks

Australia's financial institutions are not sufficiently prepared for the operational and financial consequences of geopolitical disruption, according to a warning issued Wednesday by the country's prudential regulator. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has written to banks, insurers and superannuation funds outlining what it calls minimum expectations for readiness against geopolitical shocks, citing concerns that many firms have yet to translate growing awareness of geopolitical risks into practical risk management and crisis preparedness.

AI Compresses the Cybersecurity Timeline, Dutch Regulator Warns

The window between discovering a software vulnerability and seeing it exploited is shrinking, according to the Dutch financial markets regulator, which is urging organizations to strengthen core cybersecurity practices as advanced artificial intelligence accelerates the pace and sophistication of cyberattacks.

BNZ Pays Penalty After Interest Calculation Error Shortchanged Thousands of Customers

The Bank of New Zealand has admitted misleading customers about how interest was calculated on certain non-profit accounts and agreed to pay approximately $1.56 million (NZ$2.6 million) to the Crown through an enforceable undertaking with New Zealand's Financial Markets Authority.

Spain’s Competition Regulator Clarifies How Compliance Programs Can Reduce Penalties

The Spanish competition regulator has revised one of its key compliance guidance documents, seeking to provide companies with greater clarity on how competition law compliance programs will be assessed and how those assessments may influence enforcement outcomes.

EBA Expands Oversight Role as DORA & MiCA Reshape European Banking Supervision

The European Banking Authority spent much of last year preparing to oversee companies that are not banks. That may sound like an administrative detail, but it isn't. For most of its existence, the EBA's job was largely to write rules, refine standards and help build the regulatory architecture that emerged after the global financial crisis. The institution became one of the principal architects of Europe's banking framework, translating political agreements into thousands of pages of technical requirements.

APRA Pushes Ahead With Governance Rewrite, Raising Expectations for Boards While Cutting Red Tape

Australian financial institutions may soon find themselves under stricter governance expectations, but with fewer forms to file. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority released the latest draft of its overhauled governance standard, moving into the final stage of a review that has occupied the regulator for more than a year and generated extensive debate across banking, insurance and superannuation.