Podcasts about austrac

This week, John and Elliot discuss new Russian sanctions from the Council of the European Union, new UK AML requirements for art dealers, a call to action from FATF, Interpol, and UNODC, AUSTRAC's second public consultation on new AML/CTF rules, an alert from NYDFS about scammers impersonating crypto service providers, and other items impacting the financial crime prevention community.

Reforms to the ‘tipping off' offence under section 123 of the Australian Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) came into force from the 31st of March. The revised offence differs significantly from the former regime and will have significant implications for the day-to-day practices of many Australian businesses. In this episode, HSF Partners Bryony Adams and Alice Molan, and Senior Associate Daniel Hyde, outline how the revised offence differs from the former, discuss key themes emerging from AUSTRAC's recently released guidance, and provide some thoughts on what the reforms might mean for reporting entities and others.

In today's episode of iGaming Daily, brought to you by Optimove, iGaming Expert's Editor, Joe Streeter, is joined by SBC News' Editor, Ted Orme-Claye, to unpack the serious allegations leveled against Entain by Australia's financial watchdog, Austrac, over possible failures in its anti-money laundering practices. The two explore the findings of the report, Entain's regulatory track record, and what this means for the company's future. The duo also zooms out to examine Australia's broader regulatory environment, before shifting gears to discuss Flutter's latest acquisition move in Italy — a sign of the fast-changing global iGaming landscape.To read more about the topic's discussed in today's episode, click on the following links:- https://igamingexpert.com/regions/asia/entain-austrac-aml-allegations/- https://igamingexpert.com/regions/europe/flutter-snaitech-confirmation/Host: Joe StreeterGuest: Ted Orme-ClayeProducer: Anaya McDonaldEditor: James RossiGaming Daily is also now on TikTok. Make sure to follow us at iGaming Daily Podcast (@igaming_daily_podcast) | TikTok for bite-size clips from your favourite podcast. Finally, remember to check out Optimove at https://hubs.la/Q02gLC5L0 or go to Optimove.com/sbc to get your first month free when buying the industry's leading customer-loyalty service. 

Hello, and welcome to episode 151 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. After a few quiet weeks, the news has increased this week. On sanctions, new designations aimed at the usual targets in the US, as well as enforcement news. The UK has amended some licences, as well as having issued new designations. On money laundering AUSTRAC has made a number of updates to its website, and Transparency International reflects on anti-money laundering reform in Switzerland. On fraud news, Stop Scams UK has issued a joint statement, while the APPG on Fair Banking has published a report on APP fraud. On bribery and corruption news, reports on the scale of hospitality on offer to those around government, while departures from the SEC in the US hit the news wires. In relation to other financial crime news, a Business Plan from the Serious Fraud Office, and the National Crime Agency has published its annual plan. There is also a round-up of cybercrime news.A transcript of this podcast, with links to the stories, will be available by Monday at www.crimes.financial.

In this episode of the SMSF Experts, Shelley sits down with Caroline Bowler, CEO of BTC Markets, to explore the controversial yet fascinating role of cryptocurrency in SMSFs. With over 17 years of experience in financial services and a deep expertise in blockchain and digital assets, Caroline shares valuable insights on whether crypto qualifies as a complying SMSF asset. They delve into regulatory challenges, investment strategies, and the broader impact of digital assets on the industry. (00:31) Diving into Cryptocurrency(02:25) Understanding Blockchain and Bitcoin(03:42) The Evolution of Money and Value(04:52) Bitcoin's Global Relevance(07:55) Real-World Applications of Crypto(10:54) Tokenisation and the Future of Digital Assets(21:29) Regulatory Challenges and Scams(26:54) Building a Regulatory Framework for Crypto(27:52) Impact of Global Regulations on Crypto Prices(28:41) Australia's Need to Catch Up in Crypto Regulation(30:23) Challenges and Opportunities in Crypto Investment(35:24) Understanding Crypto Wallets and Security(39:46) Risks of Complex Crypto Products for Trustees(45:15) The Potential of NFTs Beyond Digital Art Follow Shelley: LinkedinFor more episodes and to sign up for the ASF Audits newsletter, please visit asfaudits.com.au

Australia recently passed an amended anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) bill that will soon include Tranche 2 entities in its regulatory regime. The result? Approximately 100,000 new entities under its scope. Regulating non-financial entities is not a new undertaking, as we've seen in countries like the UK, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates. Crucial to the success of the regime and overall client experience will be how Australian firms adopt the best practices shown by firms in other parts of the world, while ensuring they account for the nuances of their domestic market.In this episode of KYC Decoded, risk advisory lawyer, Jeremy Moller, from Norton Rose Fulbright and Qing Liu, Moody's Senior Director of Compliance & Third Party Risk in Australia, sit down with host Alex Pillow to discuss what the anticipated changes mean for Tranche 2 obliged entities and the future of compliance in Australia.Key topics:Introduction of the Tranche 2 regulationsChallenges and opportunities for firms implementing the reformsInternational comparisons of similar regimes, and opportunities for harmonizing regulationsAdditional resources:Register for Moody's in-person Sydney event on April 3 – the event features a blend of plenary and breakout sessions led by industry peers and Moody's financial crime practice lead.Law Council of Australia: AML/CTF Guidance and Vulnerabilities AnalysisLaw Society of New South Wales AML/CTF HubInformation on AUSTRAC's AML/CTF ReformNorton Rose Fulbright's Tranche 2 and AML/CTF Reforms HubVisit our website and get in touch to learn more – we would love to hear from you.

Hello, and welcome to episode 145 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. A reasonably busy week this week. On sanctions, new designations from the UK, EU, and US, while the UN has agreed a sanctions extension on Sudan. On money laundering, AUSTRAC and Europol announce action against remitters and digital currency exchanges and a money laundering gang. On market abuse, the Financial Conduct Authority has announced action against Mako Financial Markets Partnership for failings in its systems and controls to prevent financial crime, while in other financial crime news, the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK has announced settlement in a competition case against four banks for sharing sensitive information relating to UK gilts.A transcript of this podcast is available at www.crimes.financial, with links to the stories.

Kia ora,Welcome to Tuesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz.And today we lead with news analysts are now starting to estimate the costs to the US economy of some upcoming tariff policy.But first, the S&P Global American services PMI rose in December to its strongest expansion since March 2022. But their manufacturing downturn deepened with manufacturers reporting falling output and higher prices. New factory orders fell sharply, extending the decline to a sixth consecutive month. The divergence makes the services sector jump look like a sugar-rush, one that could come with a hangover.The December factory survey in the New York region reflects the factory pullback - although that is from an unusually strong November.A New York Fed study of whether large tariff hikes protect US firms has found the opposite in a detailed survey. This is no surprise to economists, and they suggest that the next round is also likely to hurt American firms further. Further own-goals for American manufacturing are on their way. Others say it will shrink US GDP by -1%. That would be a US$300 bln hit.North of the border, Canadian housing starts came in particularly strong in November, and surprisingly so.And Canadian house prices are on an extended uptrend, boosted by more sales activity as interest rates come down there.But in a surprise political move in Canada, their Finance Minister has suddenly resigned, "throwing its economic agenda into a tailspin". Disagreement on how to frame Canada's policies when Trump comes to power in the US seems to be at the heart of the matter.Across the Pacific in Japan, their November PMIs revealed that their factory sector is now barely contracting (an improvement from October), and their services sector is now expanding faster. They had their strongest rise in private sector activity in the past three months. So perhaps it is no surprise to know that machinery orders are on the rise, after a lean period.China's new house prices in 70 cities shrank by -5.7% year-on-year in November, following the steepest decline in over nine years of 5.9% in the previous month. This marked the 17th consecutive month of decreases, suggesting that Beijing's extended attempts to mitigate the prolonged downturn in the property sector, such as reducing mortgage rates and slashing home buying costs, have yet to have the effect they are looking for. Prices for second-hand houses were even weaker.China's industrial production rose +5.4% in November from the same month a year ago, mildly exceeding market estimates and October's growth rate of +5.3%. The expansion was due to a good +6.0% rise in manufacturing. At the same time electricity production only rose +0.9% in the same basis, so that does undermine somewhat the validity of the industrial gains. And that low gain does match the 'headwinds' narrative they have been talking about. Their industrial production data seems to ignore that, and their weak PMIs. Something's not quite right.China's retail sales rose by +3.0% year-on-year in November, slowing from a +4.8% growth in the previous month and below market expectations of a +4.6% gain. This marked the weakest growth in retail activity since August. But compared with many other countries, this 'weak' expansion is better than inflation.The Indian PMI for December recorded an improving factory sector, and a services sector that is still expanding fast.India exports in November however fell to their lowest level since October 2022, down -5.2% from the same month a year ago. India is not much of a trading nation relative to the size of their economy, so the rise in economic activity is all about internal demand. However, imports surged +28% on that same year-on-year basis, and to an all-time record high.It might seem a tad ironic for a major oil producer, but Iran is proposing sweeping closures of public facilities, a move officials attribute to icy winter temperatures and the need for energy management while the country suffers massive shortages due to infrastructure failures. “Iran is on the brink of a 40% blackout in just 18 days,” said one local analyst.In Europe, Moody's unexpectedly downgraded France's credit rating from Aa2 to Aa3, citing concerns over deteriorating public finances amid political instability. For reference, Moody's rates New Zealand and Australia, each separately Aaa (although perhaps they will review ours after Thursday's GDP result).In Australia, financial system regulator ASIC is suing HSBC Australia alleging failures to adequately protect customers from scams.And AML regulator AUSTRAC is taking Entain to court over "serious" money laundering compliance breaches in its gambling/betting operations. Entain operates the TAB in New Zealand.The UST 10yr yield is now at just on 4.40%, little-changed from this time yesterday.The price of gold will start today at US$2651/oz and up +US$4 from yesterday.Oil prices are down -50 USc to be just on US$70.50/bbl in the US while the international Brent price is down almost -US$1 to be just over US$73.50.The Kiwi dollar starts today still just on 57.8 USc and up +20 bps from yesterday. Against the Aussie we are up +10 bps at 90.7 AUc. Against the euro we are also up +10 bps to 55 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 67.8 to be up +20 bps from yesterday at this time.The bitcoin price starts today at US$106,866 and up +3.7% from this time yesterday. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been moderate at +/- 2.2%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. And we will do this again tomorrow.

Hello, and welcome to the final episode of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast for 2024 – episode 138 – I'm Chris Kirkbride. On sanctions, new designations from the US and UK, and enforcement action against an alleged conspirator. MONEYVAL has been active in its work, publishing reports on Monaco, Croatia and Georgia, while AUSTRAC has been updating its website. Global Anti-Corruption Day has kept the Council of Europe, Transparency International, and OSCE busy this week, but news also comes from the US and UK, where a significant appointment has been made to the role of Anti-Corruption Champion. Other financial crime news comes from Europol, and there is a round-up of cybercrime news.A transcript of this podcast is available at www.crimes.financial, with links to the stories.

Hello, and welcome to episode 136 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. On sanctions, new designations from the UK, EU and US. On money laundering news, AUSTRAC has welcomed the new anti-money laundering law in Australia, while on bribery and corruption news, GRECO has updated on Moldova's progress in combatting corruption. On market abuse, the SEC in the US has reported on the effectiveness of its enforcement action, while in the UK the FCA has issued fines for market abuse offences. SLAPPs are once more the focus of other financial crime news, while the UK government has warned of the cyber threat from Russia.A transcript of this podcast is available at www.crimes.financial, with links to the stories.

This week, John and Elliot discuss comments by the AUSTRAC CEO, FinCEN's proposed real estate reporting form, a new UN report on trends in financing terrorist fighter's activities, a new Commerce Department report on investigations of export control and anti-boycott violations, the arrest of the Spanish Police AML Chief on corruption charges, and several other items impacting the financial crime prevention community.

A Bill has been introduced into the Australian parliament to reform the Australian anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regime. This episode explains to CA ANZ members what's in the Bill, how it may impact you, your business and your clients and when to start getting ready to comply. CA ANZ Senior Policy Advocate for Business Reform, Jill Muir joins Gillian Bowen for this practical discussion.  Resources referred to in the episode:  Media statement on AML/CTF Bill  CA ANZ Q&A on Australia's AML/CTF regime  Contact the CA ANZ Business Reform team  AUSTRAC's topic-based videos  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John and Elliot discuss several developments impacting the financial crime community this week. These include an OCCRP article on crypto ATMs, FinCEN's Alert on red flags related to the financing of Israeli extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and a joint notice on timeshare fraud, Senator Robert Menendez's corruption conviction, an AUSTRAC report on the current state of money laundering enforcement in Australia, and other items.

Hello, and welcome to episode 116 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. Money laundering takes centre stage again this week with stories from Europe and the UK. On fraud news, a range of actions from the European Public Prosecutor's Office across Romania, Malta, and Italy. The sanctions news has new designations from the US and Switzerland, and the UK has updated sanctions guidance for a number of countries. There is also a round-up of the cyber-attack news this week. As usual, I have linked the main stories flagged in the podcast in the description. These are: AUSTRAC, Spotlight on our work with international partners.AUSTRAC, Discover purpose behind the Fintel alliance.Bank of England, A multi-tool for cross-border payments: the power of Legal Entity Identifiers − speech by Victoria Cleland.Commonwealth, New Commonwealth model law to help countries regulate virtual assets.Council of Europe, Georgia: anti-corruption body calls for stronger oversight and accountability in top executive functions and the police.Council of Europe, Fifth Round Evaluation: Georgia.Delegation of the European Union to Namibia, EU supports Namibia to tackle money laundering, terrorist financing and related crimes.Eurojust, Eurojust supports searches into bribery and money laundering.European Public Prosecutor's Office, Romania: Three individuals and five companies indicted for €1 million fraud involving IT project.European Public Prosecutor's Office, Malta: Eleven charged in investigation into customs fraud and corruption of public officials.European Public Prosecutor's Office, Italy: EPPO seizes assets in €1.3 million fraud and money laundering investigation.Europol, French and Spanish authorities crack down on Chinese money laundering gang.Financial Action Task Force, Public Consultation on Recommendation 16 on Payment Transparency.Financial Action Task Force, Targeted Update on Implementation of the FATF Standards on Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers.Financial Conduct Authority, Quarterly Consultation CP24/11 No 44.National Crime Agency, National Crime Agency leads international operation to degrade illegal versions of Cobalt Strike.National Cyber Security Centre, The NCSC and partners issue alert about evolving techniques used by China state-sponsored cyber attackers.Office of Foreign Assets Control, Cyber-related Designation Removal; Russia-related Designation Removal; Issuance of Venezuela General License 40C.Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE Facilitates Training Course on Investigation of Corruption in Chisinau.The Federal Council, Ukraine: Switzerland adopts further sanctions against Russia.UK government, Zimbabwe sanctions guidance.UK government, Venezuela sanctions guidance. UK government, Guinea-Bissau sanctions guidance.UK government, Bosnia and Herzegovina sanctions guidance.UK government, Nicaragua sanctions guidance.UK government, Global Anti-corruption sanctions guidance.UK government, Global Human Rights sanctions guidance.United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Bribery becoming less accepted in Nigeria, says new report on corruption patterns and trends in the country.United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Corruption in Nigeria: Patterns and Trends.US Department of State, Sanctions on Individuals and Entities Contributing to Violence and Instability in the West Bank.  

The chief executive of the anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing agency AUSTRAC joins the show, a leading economist discusses consumer sentiment. Plus, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company hits trillion-dollar status. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, and welcome to episode 113 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. Another exceptionally busy week for financial crime this week. In the EU, the 14th package of sanctions against Russia has been agreed, while there are further designations by the UK, US, and Canada. In the UK, there are more releases of submissions to the Treasury's review of the Money Laundering Regulations, and Hungary and Gibraltar get their money laundering follow-up reports from MONEYVAL. The market abuse comes from the UK, with an update on the charges against the finfluencers, and fines from the Swedish and US authorities against a market and a trading company. There is also a round-up of the cyber-attack news this week. As usual, I have linked the main stories flagged in the podcast in the description. These are: AUSTRAC, Welcome to our refreshed website.Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, May 2024 — Monthly analysis of Russian fossil fuel exports and sanctions.Check Point Research, Threat Intelligence Report.Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Orders Trafigura to Pay $55 Million for Fraud, Manipulation and Impeding Communications with the CFTC.Financial Conduct Authority, 'Finfluencers' charged for promoting unauthorised trading scheme.Financial Conduct Authority, Update on the FCA's review of treatment of Politically Exposed Persons.Finansinspektionen, Nasdaq Stockholm receives a remark and an administrative fine.FINMA, FINMA proceedings: HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA violated money laundering regulations.Francine Pickup, Corruption is criminal, immoral, and the ultimate betrayal of public trust.Government of Canada, Canada announces additional sanctions against Russian government for its responsibility in death of Alexei Navalny.Ministry of Finance, Singapore Publishes Updated Money Laundering National Risk Assessment.Ministry of Finance, Money Laundering Risk Assessment Report 2024.MONEYVAL, Gibraltar improves compliance with international agreements on money laundering and terrorist financing.MONEYVAL, Hungary improves its measures in relation to virtual assets and virtual assets service providers.OECD, The OECD Working Group on Bribery announces new Chair.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, General Licence - Payments to the FCA INT/2024/4836676.Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Targets Houthi Weapons Procurement and Funding Networks.Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Targets Milorad Dodik's Network of Wealth Generating Companies, Including Prointer.Official Journal of the European Union, Regulation on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing ((EU) 2024/1624) (AML Regulation).Official Journal of the European Union, Regulation establishing the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) ((EU) 2024/1620) (AMLA Regulation).Official Journal of the European Union, Sixth Money Laundering Directive ((EU) 2024/1640) (MLD6).S&P Global, Russia's shadow fleet − Formation, operation and continued risks for sanctions compliance teams.Spotlight on Corruption, Spotlight on Corruption's submission to HM Treasury's consultation: ‘Improving the effectiveness of the Money Laundering Regulations'.Starling Bank, Annual Report and Accounts 2024.The White House, Statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on the Global Effort to Strengthen the Cybersecurity of Energy Supply Chains.US Department of Energy, Supply Chain Cybersecurity Principles.Wolfsberg Group, Wolfsberg Response to the MLRs Consultation (press release).Wolfsberg Group, Consultation on Improving the effectiveness of the Money Laundering Regulations (Submission).

As the Dow briefly hits a record high, investment strategist David Cassidy explains why markets are starting to take off again. Plus, Peter Dutton's plan to fix the housing crisis, AUSTRAC snares another casino and this week's top property.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, and welcome to episode 104 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm Chris Kirkbride. This week has been yet another busy week for financial crime, which as I've been ill, I could well have done without. Anyway, sanctions news covers a broad range of targets, including Belarus, Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea. The action comes in the form of new designations and some enforcement. On bribery and anti-corruption, the all-party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption & Responsible Tax has published its Economic Crime Manifesto II, and Transparency International has been busy churning out publications this week. On money laundering, Tiktok has been referred to AUSTRAC, and Europol has made a number of arrests of members of a money laundering gang. The fraud news contains the usual content from the US on Covid-19 fraud, and the Met Police in London has compromised a website used by fraudsters. There are other bits and pieces, as well as the round-up of cyber-attack news this week. Let's crack on. As usual, I have linked the main stories flagged in the podcast in the description. These are: All-Party Parliamentary Group on Anti-Corruption & Responsible Tax, Economic Crime Manifesto II.Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, “The Decade of Transformation, Towards a Future of Integrity”: the EU gathered partners to mark 10 years of its support to rule of law and anti-corruption reforms in Ukraine.European Parliament, Fighting money laundering: final vote on a single EU rulebook and a new watchdog.Europol, 9 arrests in EUR 645 million JuicyFields investment scam case.Financial Action Task Force, FATF Ministers commit to stepping up efforts to fight money laundering, terrorist and proliferation financing.Financial Conduct Authority, Consultation Paper CP24/2**: Our Enforcement Guide and publicising enforcement investigations–a new approach.Governing, How to Protect Water Systems Against Cyber Attack.International Federation for Human Rights, Fighting grand corruption: an essential lever to protect human rights worldwide.Mandiant, Unearthing APT44: Russia's Notorious Cyber Sabotage Unit Sandworm.Metropolitan Police, Law enforcement infiltrates fraud platform used by thousands of criminals worldwide.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Sudan.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Democratic People's Republic of Korea.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Iran.Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial sanctions targets: list of all asset freeze targets.Pinsent Masons, How social media influencer marketing regulation differs across the Asia Pacific region.Transparency International, Will the EU act Decisively and Raise its Anti-Corruption Standards?Transparency International, Stopping Corruption Promoting Integrity.UK Legislation, Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (Financial Penalty) Regulations 2024 SI No 445.US Department of Justice, Former North Korean Official Indicted on Sanctions Evasion, Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud, and Money Laundering Charges.US Department of Justice, International Arms Dealers Charged with Conspiring to Unlawfully Export Weapons and Ammunition from the United States to Sudan and Iraq.US Department of Justice, Biotech CEO Sentenced for $28M COVID-19 Securities Fraud Scheme and Obstruction of Related Investigation.US Department of Justice, Sterling businessman indicted for Covid-19 relief fund fraud.US Department of Justice, Three Individuals Indicted in Multistate COVID-19 Relief Program Fraud Scheme.US Department of State, Venezuela Sanctions Relief: Expiration of General License 44.US Department of the Treasury, Treasury Targets Belarusian Sanctions Evasion Networks and Cogs in Russia's War Machine.US Department of the Treasury, Treasury Targets Iranian UAV Program, Steel Industry, and Automobile Companies in Response to Unprecedented Attack on Israel.US Department of the Treasury, Remarks by Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen at the 2024 Financial Action Task Force Ministerial.US Securities and Exchange Commission, Comment on FinCEN's AML/CFT Program and SAR Filing for Registered Investment Advisers and Exempt Reporting Advisers Proposal. 

John and Elliot examine how different things come together in financial crime prevention efforts. They discuss a recent release from AUSTRAC about the connection between cybersecurity and AML/CFT compliance and an interesting blog post from the Council on Foreign Relations on the nexus of human trafficking, democracy, and corruption.

Make a submission! All concerned Australians should send an email or write a physical letter to the consultation, calling for: • Protection of cash, including access and use; • Consideration of legislation to require businesses to accept cash payments; • No forced phase-out of cheques by 2030. To make a submission, click the link for the Treasury consultation website with details of the legislation and how to submit: https://treasury.gov.au/consultations/c2023-452114 Alternatively, simply email the consultation at this address: paymentsconsultation@treasury.gov.au Or write a physical letter to this address: Sally Etherington Director Payments Strategy and Policy Unit Financial System Division Treasury Langton Cres Parkes ACT 2600 Until the 1st of November, Australians have an opportunity to submit to Treasury's consultation on a new bill to regulate digital payments in the payments system. This is an opportunity to send a very strong message to the government: whatever you do to regulate new digital payments, you must also protect the only payment system that is 100 per cent certain, reliable, and private—cash! Treasury's consultation on the exposure draft legislation for proposed reforms to the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 runs until 1 November 2023. The consultation page explains: “Following consultation in June 2023, the government is updating the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 to ensure regulators and government can address new risks related to payments as the provision of payments evolves and increases in complexity.” As yet the Australian Citizens Party has no opinion on the specific proposed reforms, but urges Australians to seize on this opportunity to send a message to the government to protect cash. A loud message is important because while the government repeatedly states it has no plans to get rid of cash, it is allowing the banks to effectively force Australians to go cashless by making it harder and harder to access and use cash. The banks: • impose arbitrary limits on cash withdrawals at branches that have nothing to do with money-laundering regulator AUSTRAC's $10,000 disclosure threshold; • interrogate anyone who wants to withdraw their own money—which the banks claim is to protect customers from scams, but it's also convenient for the banks and they take it way too far; • close branches and rip out ATMs to make it much harder for consumers and small businesses to source cash and bank their takings, and forces consumers to use private ATMs which charge high fees; • incentivise businesses to go cashless, to reduce the options for consumers to spend cash. If the government doesn't intervene to stop the banks from going down this path, Australians can look forward to a future in which any natural disaster or power failure will bring ALL commerce to a halt—possibly for days—until the infrastructure is fixed. Families will not be able to buy food, water, fuel or any other necessities. Starving, desperate people will huddle around and say, “Remember when we had cash and we could still buy stuff when the power failed?” All so technology-bedazzled bank executives can shift their banking business model to 100 per cent digital, enabling the banks to extract more profits from their customers by trapping them inside the bank, tracking and tracing every transaction and monetising the data, and taking a cut of every single transaction. To achieve their digital dystopia, the banks and the Australian Banking Association (ABA) are using dodgy claims and data to paint a false picture of Australian commerce. For example, they claim cheque use has plummeted, but that's only as a percentage—the absolute number of cheques written per month has held steady at around 2 million for 15 years.

It has been a busy 2023 in Australia with policymakers consulting on crypto licensing, AML/CTF reform, and more. Australia is home to a growing crypto ecosystem - crypto-assets are the second most popular investment after shares. With that growth has come regulatory scrutiny focused on consumer protection, combatting financial crime and creating a modern, risk-based regime for crypto-assets. In this episode, TRM's Ari Redbord and Angela Ang are joined by Joni Pirovich at BADAS*L, Brad Brown at AUSTRAC, and Steve Vallas at Blockchain APAC to discuss crypto regulatory developments in Australia.

Earlier this year I was part of a panel at Mumbrella CommsCon 2023 to discuss "how to profit with purpose". I joined three leaders in Australia's communications industry – all women, movers and shakers; founders and leaders of their respective Communications Agencies. The discussion we had was a good one, but barely had time to scratch the surface of such an important topic within an industry that has such influence and leverage.  So I invited them to join me on the podcast to take a deeper dive into the topic. I managed to get two of them into the interview. The third, Simone Gupta, who is co-founder of a new independent creative agency, Supermassive, helped us shape the subject but unfortunately couldn't make the actual interview on the day. My two guests in this interview are  Joanne Painter - Co-founder & Group Managing Director of Icon Agency Dena Vassallo - CEO and Founder of SOCIETY   Joanne Painter Co-founder & Group Managing Director of Icon Agency Joanne has over 30 years of experience across media, strategic communications and public relations. She was recently named ‘2022 PR Agency Head of the Year' in the prestigious PR Asia Awards. Formerly a senior journalist with The Age, Joanne now consults to Icon's government and corporate clients in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific, including Salesforce, Schneider Electric, ADP, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Defence, AUSTRAC, the Department of Education and the National Library of Australia.    Dena Vassallo CEO & Founder of SOCIETY SOCIETY is an independent, female-led creative agency with a fresh and brave approach to marketing communications. SOCIETY puts people at the heart of everything they do, and works to support brands and organisations that are positively shaping the societies in which we live, work, and play.  Dena lives her values of environmentalism and female representation and empowerment through her work on the board of Green Adelaide and as the Chair of She Creates.   In this interview, the rabbit hole we go down is, I believe, a really important one...the power of brands to lead positive change within business. But it's actually more than that – this interview is about brands leading societal progress. Our conversation expands to leadership, the risk of inaction, the need for bravery and how brands and leaders can move forward with their purpose agenda. It's a rich conversation with two brilliant women who are driving change through their industry. I hope you enjoy it. Highlights of this interview: Brands – the benefits of emotional characteristics over functional in building brand saliency and resilience; and the impact of a brand on building connection and belonging  Who leads purpose and ESG standards within an organisation? Why brand leadership is so important to building a purpose-led economy. The importance of the SME community to embrace ESG standards to meet Australia's ESG targets, as well as to position themselves for the supply chain needs of large organisations Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney – a case study of how to damage a brand through inauthentic cause marketing/purpose washing and a failure of leadership Unilever ANZ's B Corp Certification – how Society approached PR and Comms announcing this achievement Joanne and Dena's advice to business leaders who are holding back on leading with purpose because of fear of the risks   Connect with Dena Linkedin Email Society website   Connect with Joanne Email Linkedin Icon Agency website    

US markets experienced a general decline last week as they absorbed fresh inflation data and evaluated the future trajectory of the Fed's interest rates. The Dow increased by 105 points (+0.30%) on firday, reaching its peak with a gain of 179 points, but also experienced a low point with a decline of 116 points. The S&P 500 registered a slight decrease of 0.11%, while the NASDAQ faced a more significant loss of 0.68%. This decline was attributed to a sell-off in shares of companies like AMD (-2.4%), Micron (-1.6%), and Nvidia (-3.6%), resulting in their second consecutive week of losses. The rise in produce prices, which reflect the costs paid by wholesalers for raw materials, was 0.3% MoM, marking the most substantial increase since January and surpassing the expected 0.2%. This development led to speculations that the Fed might need to maintain higher interest rates for an extended period.Russell 2000 +0.13%, down 1.65% for the week.US Michigan consumer sentiment edged lower to 71.2 in August from 71.6 in July, beating expectations of 71.USD Dollar Index hits a five-week high of 102.86, boasted by a higher-than-expected rise in producer prices.HEADLINESASX set to fall as earnings, wage costs, jobs data top agenda.Sluggish US earnings may need pick-me-up to support 2023 stock rally.Stocks fall, yields rise after hotter than expected inflation reading.Contact Energy declares NZ21¢ final dividend.SkyCity books $45m provision for potential AUSTRAC penalty.Goldman's final take on US second-quarter results.Be wary of the dovish inflation narrative: Scotiabank.Earnings to gather pace this week.China condemns visit of 'troublemaker' Taiwan VP to US.US, China agree to double weekly flights between countries.Novo eyes other health benefits from weight-loss drug Wegovy after major trial.Trump heading for Republican 'coronation' as 2024 rivals struggle to stop him.SoftBank in talks to buy Vision Fund's 25% stake in Arm -sources.Why not sign up for a free trial? Get access to expert insights and research and become a better investor.Make life simple. Invest with Marcus Today.

On this week's episode of the Unnatural Selection Podcast, we discuss: As it happened: Ben Roberts-Smith's major court loss, costs will 'follow inevitably'. Afghanistan war crime allegations prompted US warnings about cooperation with Australia. AFL ends Hawthorn racism inquiry, with ‘no adverse findings' against coaches. Crown Resorts and AUSTRAC agree to $450 million fine over money laundering breaches. Alexander Lukashenko offers 'nuclear weapons for everyone' joining Belarus-Russia union. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan​​​​​​​ declares victory over opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Türkiye's presidential run-off election. Experts say new spotting of accused Russian spy whale proves he just wants companionship. The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things. The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone. Twitter: @JorgeTsipos @TomDHeath @UnnaturalShow   Instagram: @JorgeTsipos @Tom.Heath @UnnaturalShow  

Hello, and welcome to episode 61 of the Financial Crime Weekly Podcast, I'm your host, Chris Kirkbride. It's been a decent week this week, with a good range of money laundering stories, some bribery and anti-corruption news, and the usual round-up of cyber-attack news, with continuing repercussions for Latitude and Capita. Let's crack on. As usual, I have linked the main stories flagged in the podcast in the description. These are: Austrac, AUSTRAC and Crown agree to proposed $450 million penalty.Entain Group plc, Update on HMRC Investigation (press release).European Banking Authority, EBA consults on amendments to the Guidelines on money laundering and terrorist financing risk factors to include crypto-asset service providers.European Parliament, MEPs propose reforms to protect democratic institutions and Parliament's integrity.European Parliament, Group leaders endorse first steps of parliamentary reform.European Public Prosecutor's Office, Lithuania: 27 arrested in probe into fraud involving up to €750 000 in funds for young farmers.Financial Action Task Force, Consolidated Assessment Ratings (updated).Financial Action Task Force, Qatar's measures to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.Financial Action Task Force, Mutual Evaluation Report: Qatar.UK Financial Conduct Authority, Do the right thing: Speech by Therese Chambers, Joint Executive Director of Enforcement and Market Oversight at the FCA.UK Financial Intelligence Unit, Guidance on submitting better quality Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs).UK Insolvency Service, Warning issued by the Insolvency Service on scams.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, The UK Sanctions List.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Russia.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Russia: Updated.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Somalia.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Somalia: Updated.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Trust Services Sanctions – 5 months on (blog).UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Sanctions: Trust Services (Guidance).UN, Security Council Extends Sanctions on South Sudan for One Year, Adopting Resolution 2683 (2023) by 10 Votes in Favour, with 5 Abstentions (press release).US Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Sanctions Iranian Company Aiding in Internet Censorship.

This week witnessed Crown Resorts and AUSTRAC agree to A$450m penalty over Anti-money laundering failings and SkyCity being instructed to appoint an independent monitor to oversee its Adelaide venue. The latest news down under continues a worrying trend of regulatory issues, investigations and fines in Australia, mainly relating to Crown and Star Entertainment.In today's episode of iGaming Daily, sponsored by SBC Summit Barcelona, James Ross is joined by CasinoBeats Editor Craig Davies, who has been covering the issues since it first broke almost three years ago, to go through all things Australia and casino operations.To read more on Crown's AML fails, click the following link - https://casinobeats.com/2023/05/30/crown-resorts-austrac-a450m-penalty/Later this year, SBC Summit Barcelona will return between 19-21 September at the Fira Barcelona Montjuïc where one panel, entitled 'Sports & sponsorship landscape - growth markets and partnerships', will explore newer markers, as well as discussing how to increase properity in the European market. Click the following link for more information - https://sbcevents.com/sbc-summit-barcelona/

ASX 200 closed down 118 points to 7091 (-1.6%), plunging at 11:30 on the CPI release, which came in hotter than expected, and Chinese PMI numbers which continue to show an economy that has peaked and slowed. Energy the worst-performing sector today; markets remain divided and uncertain on whether OPEC+ will cut production at the upcoming meeting, with WDS down 2.3%, STO down 2.7%, and BPT sliding 2.5%. Resources and base metals no better as oil comes under pressure following the weaker-than-expected data from China, BHP -3.4%, RIO -2.1% and FMG down 3.0%. Gold miners are in positive territory today on safe-haven buying, NST +1.7% and AGG gaining 2.7%. Financials weighed, with the Big Bank Basket down to $166.35 (-2.3%), BOQ took a beating down 5.4% after accepting an enforceable undertaking from both AUSTRAC and APRA, while the big four banks are all down over 2%. REITS falling in tandem with bond yields. Interest rate-sensitive tech stumbled lower, with the All-Tech Index falling 0.5%, SQ2 -1.8%, NXT -1.0% and CPU off 1.3%. Industrials were broadly down, and Healthcare eased, RMD down 2.3% and RHC off 1.7%. In corporate news, QAN continues to fly, up 0.9% as the market continues to digest an upbeat investor day. SLR -1.9% provided St Barbara with a revised non-binding indicative offer, and 360 +1.0% on positive Q1 results at their AGM. In economic news, Australian inflation rose to 6.8% YoY in April up from 6.3% in March, significantly exceeding expectations of 6.4%. China's PMI showed further deterioration in manufacturing activity, coming in at 48.8 below the consensus of 49.5 and 49.2 the previous month, commodity prices coming under pressure. Asian markets down, Japan down 1.3% and HK off 2.4% with China sliding 0.6%. Australia 10Y yield down to 3.59%. Bitcoin set for first monthly drop in 2023 down 1.66%. Dow Jones futures down 121 points and Nasdaq futures down 44 points.Why not sign up for a free trial? Get access to expert insights and research and become a better investor. Make life simple. Invest with Marcus Today.

It was a very muted session on the ASX yesterday as the market quickly overcame the boost from US debt ceiling negotiations ending in an agreement to be presented to congress, and investors shifted focus ahead to next week's rate hike decision out of the RBA and the potential for inflation to remain stickier down under for a little while longer.The ASX fell 0.11% on Tuesday weighed down by a 0.88% fall in the REIT sector, while communications services stocks rose 0.62%.Paladin Energy tanked over 20% on Tuesday before being put into a trading halt as investors fled the uranium miner on rumours that Namibia may follow the Chilean government move to nationalise some mining assets. Paladin's Langer Heinrich Mine is in Namibia which is why investors fled the stock yesterday. The sell-off in miners with operations in South Africa extended to Syrah Resources who's Balama Graphite operation is in Mozambique which is in the same region as Namibia. AUSTRAC and embattled casino giant Crown proposed an agreed $450m penalty to Crown to cover breaches of anti-money laundering laws at the company's Melbourne and Perth casinos. The matter will be heard in court on July 10 to July 11. On the economic data front yesterday, building approvals in Australia sunk 8.1% month-on-month in April and down 25.5% year-on-year, with private sector houses down 3.8%. The market was expecting a rise of 2%, but the sharp decline of 8.1% takes approvals for new home builds to the lowest level in 11-years, in a sign that appetite for building investment properties remains weak and will continue dragging on the economy.Over in the US, stocks rallied in the early hours of trade as investor sentiment was high following the initial agreement being reached over the debt ceiling crisis. Tech stocks were the top performers led by an AI stock rally after Nvidia became the first chipmaker to join the trillion-dollar market capitalisation club last week. In afternoon trade the key indices pulled back as investors kept a close eye on the Fed's debt ceiling debates and also on the outlook potential for another rate hike out of the Federal Reserve next month, with the Dow Jones closing Tuesday's session 0.1% lower, while the S&P500 closed flat and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.3%.What to watch today:Ahead of the local trading session here in Australia the SPI futures are anticipating the local index to open 0.5% lower on dampened global sentiment over the passing of the debt ceiling through congress.On the commodities front this morning, oil has plunged 4.47% to trade at US$67.73/barrel ahead of OPEC+s meeting this Sunday and amid the US debt ceiling saga. Gold is up 0.81% at US$1958.61/ounce and iron ore is up 2.45% at US$104.50/tonne.AU$1.00 is buying US$0.65 cents, 91.81 Japanese Yen, 52.95 British Pence and NZ$1.08Trading Ideas:Bell Potter has increased the price target on Clarity Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CU6) from $1.35 to $1.40 and maintain a speculative buy rating on the clinical stage radiopharmaceutical company following a report out of the company on progress in its latest clinical trial investing the use of its proprietary radiopharmaceutical for the treatment of metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer. The update outlined Cohort 1 dosed 6 patients and the treatment was well tolerated, and Cohort 2 will now commence at a higher dose of the treatment.Trading Central identified a bullish signal on Service Stream (ASX:SSM) on the 30th of May following the formation of a pattern over a period of 16-days which is roughly the same amount of time the share price may rise from the close of $0.64 to the range of $0.73 to $0.75 according to standard principles of technical analysis.

The PWC Senate inquisition continues, Greens Senator David Shoebridge reveals the firm has $200m worth of contracts with the Defence department. Plus, consumer confidence falls to 1990 levels and Crown Casino settles with Austrac.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world's largest primary bullion producer, Australia's Perth Mint, has found itself at the centre of one of the country's biggest risk and compliance failures following a six-month investigation led by Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence. The government-owned entity has found itself defending regulatory spot fires on a range of fronts. These include a major money laundering audit, answering parliamentary questions about sub-standard gold deliveries to Shanghai, defending a failure to register as a remitter in breach of criminal laws, and explaining a 25-year failure to comply with U.S. commodities laws.The internationally renowned mint has also come under scrutiny from the world's largest gold market, following allegations that the Perth Mint failed to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing through its precious metals supply chain. The London Bullion Market Association's review into Perth Mint will look at a range of "responsible sourcing" concerns, including compliance with international anti-money laundering, terrorism financing and sanctions laws. The state-owned Perth Mint has exposed taxpayers to a potential billion-dollar penalty for systemic anti-money laundering compliance breaches of federal law on thousands of occasions. This includes at least 5,000 strict liability cross-border funds transfer reporting offences. The penalty for the international funds transfer instruction (otherwise known as IFTI) reporting breaches carries a theoretical A$105 billion upper limit if AUSTRAC, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, chooses to litigate. AUSTRAC has ordered an independent expert to examine a raft of other breaches of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006. The case has now become a major political issue, with Opposition politicians and media commentators calling for an urgent royal commission into the mint's governance failures.From Regulatory Intelligence (behind paywall):Perth Mint in breach of U.S. commodities laws for 25 years, says internal report: http://go-ri.tr.com/kUtsCpPerth Mint's woes deepen as London Bullion Market Association investigates supply chains, laundering: http://go-ri.tr.com/BrpH9eOUTLOOK 2023-Australian regulators begin year with huge enforcement case load: http://go-ri.tr.com/sJ1aR3EXCLUSIVE: Perth Mint knew about AML problems in March 2021 -internal documents: http://go-ri.tr.com/gRjcODPerth Mint in AUSTRAC's crosshairs over suspected money laundering breaches: http://go-ri.tr.com/gqGstxANALYSIS: How a government became embroiled in a billion-dollar criminal gold laundromat: http://go-ri.tr.com/CPkOrZPerth Mint may have exploited registration loophole in AML/CTF Act, says WA government: http://go-ri.tr.com/W4Kw6JPremier speaks out on WA government's gold laundering scandal: http://go-ri.tr.com/sLwEEXGovernment taking gold laundromat allegations "very seriously", says WA Premier: http://go-ri.tr.com/sLwEEX Compliance Clarified is a podcast from Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence.Listen to wide-ranging, insightful discussions on all things compliance for financial services firms. We delve into the hot topics of the day, the challenges faced and offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice. We de-mystify regulation and explore the art, as well as the science, of the ever-expanding role of the compliance officer.  Enforcements, digital transformation, regulatory change, governance, culture, conduct risk – anything and everything impacting the compliance function is up for discussion.

Hello, and welcome to this week in financial crime. I'm your host, Chris Kirkbride. It's been a relatively quiet week this week, with a little on sanctions and fraud, as well as a curious money laundering story. We'll also round-up this week's cyber-attack news, so let's make a start.These are the links to the principal documents mentioned in the podcast:Alexander Dyck, Adair Morse & Luigi Zingales, How pervasive is corporate fraud?AUSTRAC, AUSTRAC cements partnership with United Kingdom to intensify fight against financial crime.Capital Markets Institute, How Pervasive is Corporate Fraud? It's More Common Than You Might Think.Council of the European Union, Myanmar/Burma: EU imposes sixth round of sanctions against 9 individuals and 7 entities.Crown Prosecution Service, Three city workers sentenced in a $8.45m hedge and wealth fund fraud.Financial Action Task Force, Outcomes FATF Plenary, 22-24 February 2023.Financial Action Task Force, Statement on the Russian Federation.Financial Conduct Authority, Armchair detective investors take inspiration from Sherlock Holmes to foil investment scams.National Crime Agency, City fund managers sentenced to 12 years for $8m fraud.National Cyber Security Centre, Threat Report 24th February 2023.The White House, FACT SHEET: On One Year Anniversary of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, Biden Administration Announces Actions to Support Ukraine and Hold Russia Accountable.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions Targets in the UK: Russia.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Financial Sanctions Notice: Russia.UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, Understanding OFSI: An Introductory Webinar.US Department of Justice, Fraud Section Year in Review 2022.US Department of the Treasury, Remarks by Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo on International Sanctions Against Russia.World Economic Forum, Cyber scams are exploiting Türkiye-Syria earthquake relief efforts.

·       Beth and Ingrid look at the issue of de-banking and the impact on people working in the sex industry and in adjacent professions such as stripping. We look at the draft guidance from AUSTRAC on financial services for customers that financial institutions assess to be higher risk. We look in particular at the ways that that guidance supports sex workers and the ways it falls short, particularly in terms of the requirement to remind financial institutions about obligations under state and federal anti-discrimination laws. To speak on this issue, we're lucky to be joined by Matthew Roberts, a sex worker and the Policy Officer at Sex Work Law Reform Victoria. Sex Work Law Reform Victoria is an independent non-partisan volunteer group led by sex workers, lobbying for the full decriminalisation of consensual adult sex work in Victoria. We have spoken with Matthew before on Done by Law about the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill and we're excited for him to return as a guest to shine a light on financial discrimination against sex workers, and the work of Sex Work Law Reform Victoria in this space.

Inflation slowing down shows the first signs that the cost of living crisis may be coming to an end. Plus, AUSTRAC sues Star Casino, protests in China spread beyond Shanghai and Uber launches a car sharing platform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday 1 December 2022 There are signs that inflation might be coming off the boil, which is good news for anyone with a mortgage.  Also today: SM becomes the first former PM to be censured by parliament, but he isn't going to apologise for anything.  AUSTRAC sues Star Entertainment over money laundering allegations And the shockingly high number of people who died in Qatar, building infrastructure for the soccer World Cup. Plus don't miss the latest episode of How Do They Afford That? This week, it's all about dealing with bill shock. Subscribe: APPLE, SPOTIFY, or anywhere you listen to podcastsSupport the show: https://fearandgreed.com.au/all-episodesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Australian gambling giant Star Entertainment Group was last month fined A$100 million for failing to stop money laundering at its Sydney casino. The group's licence to operate the casino has also been suspended. Casino operators in Australia have been under great pressure to reform their gambling operations following reports of widespread criminal activity. The record penalties were announced in response to a damning inquiry in New South Wales (NSW) earlier this year. The Star is not alone. There has been misconduct at various casinos around Australia in recent years, including at those owned by the country's largest gaming and entertainment group - Crown Resorts. It was fined A$80 million by Victorian gambling authorities earlier this year for its failures to stop criminal activity. It is also in litigation with the country's feared AML/CTF agency, AUSTRAC, which is known for handing down billion-dollar penalties. In this episode Alexander Robson, managing editor, Regulatory Intelligence, is joined by Nathan Lynch, APAC managing editor in Perth, and Niall Coburn, senior regulatory intelligence expert in Brisbane, to discuss the failures at the casinos, what needs to happen next and they offer lessons well beyond Australia. Articles on Regulatory Intelligence (subscription needed) COLUMN: Star casino report highlights gaps in Australia's criminal intelligence http://go-ri.tr.com/PeqrM3 COLUMN: Queensland Star casino inquiry will consider compliance problems exposed in other states http://go-ri.tr.com/4BKu4c IMPACT ANALYSIS: Australian casinos – no consequences for directors despite widespread corporate governance failings http://go-ri.tr.com/Y8hCKO Star inquiry slates casino's Chinese payment card AML workaround http://go-ri.tr.com/B44iIm AUSTRAC defends billion-dollar penalties as crucial deterrent against corporate apathy http://go-ri.tr.com/VOkA5B No paywallAustralia casino operator Star found unfit for Queensland licence https://www.reuters.com/business/australia-casino-operator-star-found-unfit-queensland-licence-2022-10-06/ Money laundering through the gambling industry https://baselgovernance.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/QG28%20gambling.pdf Junket tour operations in Australia https://www.austrac.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-12/JTO_2020_FINAL.pdf The Compliance Clarified podcast series covers the wide range of topics which affect compliance officers in financial services firms. The series has been designed to help compliance officers make sense of the often-challenging world of financial services regulation, which is now overlaid with expectations not found in the black and white of any rulebook. The role and remit of the compliance officer is ever-growing, and senior compliance officers have had to become polymaths, mastering not only detailed subject matter expertise but also the qualitative mysteries of culture and conduct risk. Compliance Clarified covers the hot topics of the day and the challenges they bring, and aims to offer up practical ideas for emerging good practice.

J.Pow leads the charge against inflation, lifting the U.S. fund target rate to 4.00%, GSFM's Stephen Miller reveals how we will be affected. PLUS, AUSTRAC takes on online betting companies and the ATO rakes in $11B more in corporate taxes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Two of Australia's biggest betting agencies, Sportsbet and Bet365, may face multimillion-dollar fines following after an audit authorised by Australia's financial crime watchdog.   Airbnb has broken one of its own financial records after a huge northern hemisphere summer… but now, investors are little more concerned about its prospects.   Johnson & Johnson is buying a heart device maker named Abiomed for around $17B USD in its biggest deal in almost six years.   ---   Build the financial wellbeing of your team with Flux at Work: https://bit.ly/fluxatwork Download the free app (App Store): http://bit.ly/FluxAppStore Download the free app (Google Play): http://bit.ly/FluxappGooglePlay Daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/fluxnewsletter Flux on Instagram: http://bit.ly/fluxinsta Flux on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@flux.finance   ---   The content in this podcast reflects the views and opinions of the hosts, and is intended for personal and not commercial use. We do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other information provided or distributed in these episodes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kimberley Cole talks with our first Risky Man Nathan Lynch, a regulatory intelligence professional and author of The Lucky Laundry. They discuss the real world outcomes of financial crime, the status of Australia and how compliance and risk professionals are critically important to prevention. SHOW NOTES 01:41 Career Journey 12:04 The Lucky Laundry Book 16:56 Australia Situation & AUSTRAC 29:06 Role & Skills for AML Pros 36:05 Rants & Revelations 41:55 Recommendations Transcript and more: https://www.riskywomen.org/2022/10/podcast-s5e6-the-lucky-laundry-nathan-lynch/

Australia's financial crimes authority AUSTRAC's investigation into the Perth Mint on suspicion it breached anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financial laws spells danger for the WA government. Thomson Reuters Asia Pacific financial crime expert Nathan Lynch (above), author of recently released book The Lucky Laundry, told Simon Beaumont on 6PR Mornings that the state government was unaware of its compliance responsibilities and should be held responsible for its oversight. "Perth Mint is holding $6 billion of gold, insured by WA taxpayers on its books," Lynch said. "But also they have some complex products, like a digital app where you can trade peer-to-peer gold certificates, backed by the WA government. "You can imagine how attractive this is to a criminal group that wants to move funds across borders."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Changes to the way you report the cross-border movement of monetary instruments of AUD10,000 or more (or foreign currency equivalent) to AUSTRAC took effect on 17 June 2022. This feature explains more - வெளிநாடு பயணிப்பவர்கள் எடுத்து செல்லக்கூடிய பணம் மற்றும் Cheque போன்றவற்றின் வரம்பு குறித்த விதிமுறையில் மாற்றம் சமீபத்தில் அறிமுகமாகியுள்ளது. இது குறித்த விவரணம், தயாரித்து வழங்குகிறார் செல்வி

TW: Sex trafficking, Eating disordersToday we are looking at an absurd document released earlier this year by AUSTRAC. For Shit People Say, Jenna and Holly both go on rants about supposed “compliments”, our Misconception is that sex work is easy, and the Question of the Week is a doozy (TW: ED for the Question) 1:49 Main Segment: AUSTRAC's Guide to Detecting and Stopping Forced Sexual Servitude29:05 Shit People Say: “Learn to take a compliment” 46:25 Misconception: Sex work is easy, a lazy option52:17 Question of the week: Do you report her to the site to try to help her or leave her be to earn a little money?The AUSTRAC Guide: https://www.austrac.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-02/AUSTRAC_FCG_DetectingAndStoppingForcedSexualServitude_web.pdfPatreon (from $3AUD/month): http://www.patreon.com/somebodyyoupodInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/somebodyyoupodTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/somebodyyoupodFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/somebodyyoupodSomebody You Love is sponsored by Assembly Four, empowering sex workers through technology: https://assemblyfour.com/ For more info on sex work in Australia, please check out the following organisations: Scarlet Alliance: https://www.scarletalliance.org.au/ACT (SWOP ACT): https://meridianact.org.au/swop/NSW (SWOP NSW): https://swop.org.au/NT (SWOP NT): https://www.ntahc.org.au/swopntQld (Respect Inc): https://respectqld.org.au/SA (SIN): http://www.sin.org.au/sindex.htmlTas (Scarlet Alliance): https://scarletalliance.org.au/links/Vic (Vixen Collective): https://www.vixencollective.org/vcWA (SWEAR): http://sexworkerrightswa.org WA (Magenta): http://magenta.org.auSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/somebodyyoupod)

The Reserve Bank and Treasury are considering the feasibility of a central digital currency, under ­reforms aimed at establishing a regulated onshore cryptocurrency industryWhile other arts sectors have been struggling, the value of film and television production surged to a record $1.9 billion last financial year as Australia became one of the world's safest places to shoot during the pandemic.Australian Institute of Company directors study shows Australian boards are struggling to prepare their companies or organisations for climate change, with almost half the country's directors saying they don't know how to tackle the issue.Australians are paying more personal income tax as a share of government revenue than any other advanced economy, according to OECD dataThe Australian Taxation Office and AUSTRAC could be handed sweeping new surveillance powers, including the right to bug people's phones and online communications, as part of an overhaul of telecommunications intercept laws.Follow my socials on: https://twitter.com/leongettlerhttps://www.instagram.com/leongettler/https://www.linkedin.com/in/leongettler/https://www.facebook.com/talkingbusinesspodcast See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kia ora,Welcome to Thursday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news it is all about consumer inflation, and the market reactions that followed.The US CPI came in way above its expected high level. It was running at 5.4% in September and was expected to rise to 5.8% in October. But the actual October rise was by 6.2%. Even their 'core inflation' data pushed on up sharply higher than expected from 4.0% in September to 4.6% in October. Their headline inflation rate is the highest in more than 30 years; their core inflation rate is the same.The largest increases in this data are for energy-related costs (+30%), but nearly everything else rose sharply as well like food (+5.3%) and apparel (+4.3%). The only major category holding the line has been medical and healthcare costs.Tomorrow is Veterans Day in the US, a Federal holiday, so we got some data usually due out on their Thursday's a day earlier. And that includes their weekly jobless claims data update. Another +254,000 people signed up for these benefits last week and a small increase from the previous week. There are now 1.9 mln people on these programs and basically back to their pre-pandemic level.Japanese machine tool orders impressed yet again, up more than +80% above year ago levels and +70% higher than October 2019 levels. Even if there are inflationary aspects to discount, these clearly indicate company boardrooms have authorised recovering capital investment plans. They take them back to the very healthy 2018 levels.China's CPI inflation rate rose to 1.5% in October from 0.7% in September, but this was a rise that was expected. And small as it is, consumer inflation is creeping back in China.But their producer prices rose at a faster rate, up +13.5% in a year and well above the +10.7% rise in September. It is this acceleration that may have global consequences.As expected, new yuan loans in China fell sharply in October but at least they came in slightly better than what was expected.We are now right at the sharp end of the Evergrande crisis. Some bondholders report have not received coupon payments by the end of 30-day grace periods at close of Asia business yesterday, which may trigger default action.German CPI inflation was confirmed at the 4.5% their earlier 'flash report' had signaled.Elsewhere in Europe, courts there have upheld the giant US$2.8 bln anti-trust fine on Google, adding new momentum to the bloc's assault on big tech companies.In Australia, Austrac, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission told a parliamentary hearing into Australia's money-laundering laws that criminals are using lawyers, accountants and real estate agents to launder tens of billions of dollars through the Australian property market each year. Austrac testified that in 2020, Chinese interests laundered AU$1 bln through real estate transaction, and they pointed out that there were times when prospective homeowners would be competing against money launderers at auctions.The UST 10yr yield opens today at 1.55% and up a very sharp +12 bps since this time yesterday and rising. The price of gold will start today up +US$25 to US$1854/oz and to a 100 day high. Most of this rise happened after the London market closed.And oil prices are softer by about -50 USc and are now at just over US$81/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now just under US$83/bbl.The Kiwi dollar opens today giving up more it its recent gains and is back to 70.9 US. Against the Australian dollar we are softer at 96.3 AUc. Against the euro we are unchanged at 61.5 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 starts today at just on 74.9 and back to where it was on Monday.The bitcoin price has risen to a new record high and is now at US$68,616 and a +2.8% rise from this time yesterday. It is probably getting a push as some sort of inflation hedge because this latest rise came following the US CPI data. Volatility over the past 24 hours has moderate at just over +/-2.2%.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.And get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again tomorrow.

Hunt & Hunt Lawyers Partner Andrew Ham talks about recent risk assessments released by The Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac) , and the potential impact in might have on reporting entities covered under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing Act. Mentioned in Podcast: Austrac Assessments: https://www.austrac.gov.au/news-and-media/media-release/austrac-releases-four-new-australian-banking-sector-risk-assessments GRC Institute Anti-Money Laundering Networking Group: https://thegrcinstitute.org/Events/eventdetail/1401 Related Articles Assessments to be kept in Context: https://thegrcinstitute.org/news/view/2997

Last year in the pandemic a lot of people withdrew their superannuation under the Early Release Scheme. For many, it was a lifeline to cover food, rent and pay down debt in case things got worse. For others, it was about replacing an ageing car, or trying to save or even start a business. And surprise, surprise, overall it's worked out worse for women than for men. Plus, cuckoo smurfing — what it is, how to spot it, how to make sure it doesn't happen to you.Guests:Shane Oliver, Chief Economist, AMP CapitalMelissa Birks, General Manager, Advocacy, The Australian Institute of Superannuation TrusteesGillian Kilgour, MetalSmiths Jewellery CollectiveTamika Hicks, Manager and Founder, Cardinia lakes Early Learning CentreMarcus Erikson, Director of Intelligence, AUSTRAC

In the fourth episode of the Compliance Clarified podcast Susannah Hammond, Brett Wolf and Nathan Lynch discuss the evolving impact of financial crime on financial services firms and their compliance officers. The wide-ranging conversation ranges from the changing stance on sanctions coming from the U.S. to the recent actions of the global AML-standard setting Financial Action Task Force which has vowed to continue to crack down on opaque transactions tied to cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. Ransomware, the use of technology and the implications of the U.S. AML Act of 2020 also all feature. As discussed in the podcast here are a selection of articles by Brett and Nathan: Colonial Pipeline hack highlights blockchain activityhttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/amlwolf_colonial-pipeline-hack-highlights-blockchain-activity-6806178253544460288-_IEQ Senior Biden administration official discusses approach to sanctions https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amlwolf_senior-biden-wh-official-discusses-sanctions-activity-6806178505458536448-ltDD Inside AML: How Australia's banks joined forces to break open a “cuckoo smurfing” syndicatehttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/posts/inside-aml-how-australias-banks-joined-forces-to-break-open-a-cuckoo-smurfing-syndicate FinCEN leaks expose personal risk of AML/CTF compliance enforcementhttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com/mena/business/posts/fincen-leaks-expose-personal-risk-of-aml-ctf-compliance-enforcement Public-private sectors must work together to restore trust, manage risks post-COVIDhttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/posts/public-private-sectors-must-work-together-to-restore-trust-manage-risks-post-covid New Zealand central bank has failed on AML/CFT supervision, says FATFhttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/posts/new-zealand-central-bank-has-failed-on-aml-cft-supervision-says-fatf WEBINAR: Beyond the FinCEN files: Building a better framework for financial intelligencehttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/resources/resource/webinar-beyond-the-fincen-files-building-a-better-framework-for-regulatory-intelligence FinCEN leaks highlight need for “radical” approach to tackling financial crimehttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/posts/fincen-leaks-highlight-need-for-radical-approach-to-tackling-financial-crime Cash Converters in AUSTRAC's gunsights, as regulator sizes up next enforcement targetshttps://insight.thomsonreuters.com.au/business/posts/cash-converters-in-austracs-gunsights-as-regulator-sizes-up-next-enforcement-targets

-- NAB business survey delivers great news, but CreditorWatch issues warning -- Debt concerns as more Aussies borrow more than 6x income -- Westpac lifts fixed term rates and ANZ predicts two increases in H2 2023 -- Boring is beautiful as Brickworks jumps 9% -- AUSTRAC goes after a bank and three casinos… again -- El Salvador accepts Bitcoin… -- Jeff Bezos is going into space See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A blitz from anti-money laundering enforcer AUSTRAC knocked some steam out of the market. The Motley Fool's Scott Phillips joins Brooke Corte. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

An early session slide kept the ASX 200 in the red for most of the day with the index closing down 0.2%. Tech rebounded strongly, thanks to Altium's rejection of a $5 billion takeover offer from US tech juggernaut, Autodesk. Altium's share price closed up 39% as a result. Meanwhile, AUSTRAC's announcement that it would be taking a closer look at NAB and casino operators' for money laundering breaches obviously wasn't received favourably - NAB down 3.2%, Crown Resorts down 1.5% and Star Entertainment down 2%. Our top three VODs today are:Two small caps that are fighting fit post-COVIDScott wants to get caught with his pants up; two buys for MondayMorningstar's pockets of 'value' and 'avoid'Catch us live and free at ausbiz.com.au See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to Finance and Fury. This episode we will look at crypto markets as there is a fair amount of noise being generated in this space at the moment. Just a heads up that this will be a bit of a longer episode as there is a lot to unpack. I have made my position on crypto markets fairly obvious in the past – if you haven't listened to any of those episodes, I will provide a bit of a summary of where I stand in relation to cryptocurrencies – and whilst markets price dynamics has changed substantially over the past 3 years – my position hasn't As an overview – I am not for or against them – many people have been able to create wealth through trading crypto – and all the power to them – this is great If people can successfully trade coins profitably, then this is fantastic – cryptos offer an alternative form of monetary conversion beyond traditional asset classes First – I have to explain my overall view when it comes to crypto - I like the concept of the blockchain – I also like the concept of cryptocurrencies like BTC – When it comes to the money supply and particularly the control of the money supply – I think they free market should be responsible for this – creating competition for money and with this interest rates changes based around demand and supply dynamics – Where we currently sit is a complete centrally planned money supply based around what a central authority deems as appropriate as not only the cost of money (being the interest rate) but also what the devaluation of this currency should be each year (which is the inflation rate) Put into this perspective – fiat cash is not a great medium of exchange for the population/economy – You are essentially guaranteed to lose money in real terms after record low interest rates minus inflation expectations – but it is great for those that provide the fiat but does this mean I am converting fiat money into these cryptocurrencies – well, no. If people do, then all the power to them – I hope the cryptocurrencies that people are buying can grow in prices at an accelerated pace – I personally have nothing against the crypto markets - But I haven't bought any? Well – there are a number of reasons – but the major one is Legislative risk – As we will look at in this episode – there is a massive potential for crypto markets to accumulate additional money flows – in other words – additional funds are available to purchase cryptos like BTC, ETH, or one of the other 4,000 currencies Everything else being equal – where legislation stays the same, and the interest from the population still continues to rise at the same level as is the current trend - There is potential for cryptos to go in up in value – and go up in value by a large margin – Taking this view – it is a numbers game – if most people in the world don't own any BTC but are interested in buying some, and convert AUD, USD, or other currencies for these cryptos, then the prices will go up – purely based around the numbers who don't currently own crypto - This is the potential major upside for markets – let assume that there are no governments, or central bank controlled fiats – and that these entities even if they did exist have no interest in controlling the money supply – crypto has a lot of upside to it and would probably be the new medium of exchange people would use recently released report on the State of the Crypto Marketfrom Gemini - they polled 3,000 U.S. adults, ages 18 to 65 with $40,000 or more in household income This survey included 921 current cryptocurrency owners and 1,697 consumers who were interested in learning more about cryptocurrency Now – this survey sample size is small – but they have extrapolated this data and estimated that roughly 14% of the U.S. population owns cryptocurrency This number is actually fairly consistent with other estimates from surveys conducted - This translates to 21.2 million U.S. adults who own cryptocurrency – but based around interest in this subject - This number is expected to double over 2021 – going to 42m US adults – let alone the rest of the global population There is currently a large demographic of the population who could be considered crypto-curious – these people would be those who do not currently own cryptocurrency but have indicated that they may wish to purchase some crypto soon This group is significant in size – based around the current market demographics – has the potential to include 63% of U.S. adult population This doesn't mean that every person in this group will buy crypto – but let's say that even 30% do, well this is still a large increase from the current ownership demographic- with this comes additional money flow – hence, more potential to increase the price of BTC If everyone who is curious about buying cryptos, this is fairly bullish - so assuming that everything else stays the same in sentiment – where these individuals are still bullish for crypto, hence why they are looking to purchase – then prices have the potential to rise – the more people buy over sell, the more prices rise Beyond these survey results – it is becoming clear that crypto awareness is spreading – and the hope for acceptance is becoming more and more mainstream – this is promising for the future of crypto's growth general knowledge about cryptocurrency seems to mirror what we hear in the news - Bitcoin is almost synonymous with crypto - few people are familiar with other coins – almost everyone interested in crypto has heard of BTC – but only about one third has heard of ETC   Based around demographic trends - more than a quarter (26%) of current owners first acquired crypto in the last year - and 68% individuals have purchased crypto for the first time within the last two years shows crypto is starting to receive a widespread interest and it is growing fast – helping to push prices up While new cryptocurrencies emerge nearly every day, bitcoin still reigns supreme as not only the coin most people have heard of, but also the coin most crypto holders own Nearly 9 in 10 current crypto owners currently own or have owned bitcoin (87%) Compare this to bitcoin cash at 22% and litecoin at 21% The large majority of current crypto owners say they buy and hold crypto for its long-term investment potential. More than two-thirds (69%) buy and hold, compared to the 36% who actively buy and sell as a means to achieve profits and the 27% who actively use it to make purchases on the internet. All of this is very interesting – as prices for anything are determined by those looking to buy or sell – say a few million people with $100s of millions of dollars are looking to enter crypto markets – where the majority of these people are focusing on BTC – then this technically should mean that BTC prices are set to rise over the next few years – and they very may well - But – the thing I am wary of is the legislative risk – this is the major thing that has made me personally avoid the crypto currency markets – again, I love myself a free market – and the blockchain with some particular cryptos are something that the libertarian inside of me really loves – but the libertarian inside of me also understands how governments act – in regards to their historical behaviours as well as the primary purpose of a monetary economy For those who aren't familiar – we live in a monetary economy – i.e. we exchange a fait currency for a good or service – in the past, there have existed barter economies – when we exchange goods with one another directly – but then due to convenience – the market adapted to a monetary economy – where people started exchanging gold/silver or gold/silver backed IOUs as a medium of exchange – this was all conducted in a private manner and was working well why is this important for a government? A monetary economy is so much easier to collect taxes on – the government doesn't want to collect 10 of your cows in annual income tax, they would prefer to take say 30% on average of your gross income – so the very early private monetary economies were taken over by state at the time – they effectively disallowed the use of privately minted coins with that which contained their own markings This can occur with any medium of exchange - in the modern era this has been the gold standard, then fiat currency – which is granted legislative power as being the only currency that can be accepted to pay taxes or debts – fiat currencies have a monopoly of force behind them if you sell BTC and make a capital gains, you have to pay this tax in AUD – not in BTC to the Gov – If you do not disclose this capital gain – and the government finds out about this through their reporting entities like AUSTRAC – then they have a monopoly of force to make you pay – ignore them for long enough, you can have an arrest warrant issued in your name and then police with guns are legally required to reprimand you until you pay what is owed When it comes to any monetary economy – under the prevailing thought - a centralised currency is required by the powers that be to accept taxes as well as the repayment of debts – it makes thing simple for them Think of your PAYG – you have a chunk of your fiat currency (AUD for most people listening) taken out of your pay cycle – Lets use a thought experiment – lets say that AUD is replaced with BTC – the reporting and control of this currency is outside of the governments hands – this is actually no good for governments under the current system for them to collect taxes or guarantee that they have a never ending supply of debt they can issue They not only need complete oversight and visibility of the going on with this currency (so they get their taxes) – but control of the supply to fund never ending fiscal deficits But the bigger issue for them is the limited supply of certain cryptos – like BTC – Hard to continue to print, or increase the monetary supply of a currency – Technically this isn't so much of an issue – as you just devalue the price mechanics – similar to how the price of gold was controlled by a central bank when this was the backing of money – you can artificially increase the money supply if you increase the price of gold from $15 an ounce to $35 – same amount of gold but now it is worth far more – even the romans devalued their coins by reducing the amount of silver in them But the major governments as it currently stands is not interested in adopting any existing cryptos – they are more interested in central bank issued digital currencies Some smaller governments around the world may chose to accept it – but the major governments won't Digital coins - What form these take is anyone's guess – China is currently looking at a gold backed stable coin – hence why they seem to be hoarding physical gold – and why they are starting to crack down on crypto access and miners But when it comes to governments and the adoption of a particular medium exchange – they do not like competition – when gold was the backing for money the governments made this illegal for individuals to own – unless it was in jewellery or collectable form – so if central banks are looking at their own form of digital coins – and if cryptos are seen as competition – which are a destabilising factor to the monetary economy – what are governments likely to try and do to competing digital currencies/cryptos? Competing cryptos are considered deflationary by monetary officials - rather than AUD being spent in the economy for GDP it is being converted to BTC – creating a deflationary effect on the AUD – requiring more to be printed to try and boost GDP Can the government ban crypto? Can they outright ban BTC, or ETH or ripple – well no – due to the nature of the blockchain it is going to be very hard, if not possible for a single government to ban the existence of a crypto But let's take a step back – what do governments control – regulation of fiat currencies – control over ADIs – i.e. banks – in the modern financial era they have a never before seen control over this sector of the financial markets – from not only the supply of money, but from what you can use your own cash for i.e. cash restriction bill – limiting how much cash a private business can accept as payment for their services – which is open ended with restrictions – it is simply up the government to change their mind Much of the bullish behaviour of BTC has come from the expectation, or hope that many large multinational companies will accept currencies like BTC as payment – Has created a major bullish sentiment in crypto – saw the price go from $20k AUD to $85K per BTC – many other major crypto currencies followed suit- expectation that major companies like TSLA would accept payment is good news – and it is good news – until they turned around and reneged on this Also, other companies like Mastercard and BPAY said they are going to accept transfers and payments in cryptos like BTC – but lets look at their business/profit motives for a minute – if their business model is to make a percentage split on money spent through their chain, wouldn't it make sense to adopt as many different methods as possible to make as much money as possible? so this adoption from companies like Mastercard may not be because they see BTC taking over fiat currency, but simply another way to make additional revenues But negative news surrounding this space – such as tweets from Elon Musk and news from the Chinese Government have created a negative sentiment for cryptos like BTC – saw a 50% decline in prices This is where it is important to look at what governments have control over China cannot ban the existence of BTC – but they can ban any financial intermediary from accepting a conversion from BTC to RMB – effectively controlling the flow of currency into crypto or vice versa Say you have a wallet and you are looking to get your BTC out into RMB in your own bank account – well China as the monopoly controller of these financial institutions can decline this transaction – You are still left with options – P2P conversions for other crypto currencies – or set up a new bank account offshore and convert your coins into another currency – which can then be converted back to RMB But let's say that the US follows suit, or Aus – and slowly as part of a G20 agenda – no financial institutions across this jurisdiction are willing to convert any funds from a crypto wallet into any major fiat currencies – well, this is a major risk – it may never happen – but this all depends on the willingness of governments, not their ability – they have the ability but are rather slow at getting anything done – which the major concern that I have when it comes to these markets in their current form The way I view it is that crypto markets are being allowed to exist by the powers that be, as in their current state they pose no risk – central bank and fiscal mandates are to ensure financial stability – if all of a sudden, they deem that say BTC is creating issues with financial stability, either through consumer protection excuses or through deflationary pressures where fiat currency is being converted to crypto rather than being spent within the economy – well, daddy government may start paying more attention to their methods of controlling/regulating these markets Plus – what makes the crypto markets great in the eyes of many, makes it a money-making playground for others – such as the billionaires or whales within the market As an example – say I am an eccentric billionaire – and I dump $5m into some alt coin – more or less a meme coin like poocoin (real thing) – then I promote it and get other people to buy it, saying that it is going to go up in price – many other people start you buy and the price goes up by 2,000% very quickly through a self-fulfilling prophecy – I then sell my position and take profits – then I reinvest into another coin – promote this via twitter telling people that it is the next big thing and to invest all of their money – then I make a further 2,000% on this coin – and repeat this behaviour – I can make a lot of money – especially if people respect my public profile and I can reach enough people Now – this type of behaviour is commonly referred to a pump and dump scheme – you promote something where others then invest into it and it push the price up – I as a smart person know that the prices the current asset that I am promoting is not worth what it is trading it, so I sell – and take my profits – this is technically illegal on markets that are regulated by entities such as the SEC or ASIC – goes against market integrity rules – But for unregulated markets – this is fully legal – The unregulated crypto market is rife with market manipulation – and technically I see nothing wrong with this – I prefer an environment of buyer beware - it helps to create a more aware population – but when most of the population is used to the concept that some arbitrary rule or regulation will save them from these schemes – it can lead to undesired outcomes – where people lose money – But this sort of pump and dump is the day-to-day occurrence within crypto markets – Whilst it is not good for anyone duped by these schemes – this is the smallest risk that these markets face and markets will adapt over time – people will start paying less attention to what Elon Musk has to say and no longer respond to his signals - But this sort of behaviour can also bring is a large risk from a legislative perspective – this is consumer protection – that governments need to get in involved and treat cryptos as securities, falling under their legislative branch So in summary – if people are making money from Crypto – that is awesome – I would prefer some form of naturally adopted medium of exchange that it outside of government or central bank control – to help maintain purchasing power This is where the blockchain has a lot of promise – but I also know that the government and monetary authorities don't like anyone else playing with their toys This is the same position I have had for the past 3 years when it comes to each any every single coin – The prices may go up and down – but what are those prices measured in? Aus, USD, - and when governments bring in their own digital currencies, competing coins may be deemed too much of a risk So for me personally –prices have the potential to go up of crypto as more and more people adopt this – through converting their fiat for crypto – But as a store of value for the very long term – and as something that can provide me value through an investment – it is something I am not interested in I may be wrong – governments may change their minds and completely ignore crypto markets – but I am not willing to take that chance Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in contact you can do so here: http://financeandfury.com.au/contact/ 

Westpac's cash profit has fallen by two thirds as the impact of the pandemic, along with the record fine from AUSTRAC, blew a hole in the bank's balance sheet. AFR Chanticleer columnist James Thomson joins Brooke Corte. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode #69 of Spotee on Shares saw Nick Radge from The Chartist and Elio D'Amato from Spotee Consulting answer your questions and shine the spotlight on shares.   Stocks discussed in the episode included (in order) $CWN $HYD $JXT $RCL $JLG $DOU $POS $SXY $QFE $IZZ $IIND $DSE $TNT $AVA $WOR $AGE $DYL $SWM $BGL   Our topic of the day was, “What does CWN Crown Resorts being under the AUSTRAC spotlight mean for the stock?”   If you have a question for our guests that you would like answered on the next show then: Email: question@spotee.com.au Text: 0480 079 089   Disclaimer: The information in this recording (“Information”) is not intended to constitute advice. It is for general information only and does not take into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. You should assess whether the information is appropriate for you and seek professional financial advice before relying on or making investment decisions based on the Information. Investment products are subject to risk including the loss of income or capital invested. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Neither Spotee Pty Ltd ACN 637 623 940, Daylight Financial Group Pty Ltd ACN 633 984 773 (AFSL 521404), its directors, employees and representatives (collectively, “Spotee”) warrant the accuracy or completeness of the Information. To the extent permitted by law, Spotee disclaims all responsibility and liability for any loss or damage of any nature whatsoever which may be suffered by any person directly or indirectly.

The Aussie share market kicked up 1.8% (Mon-Thu) following better than expected economic news and government stimulus. With uncertainty around the world, the risks appear manageable given the momentum behind economic growth.  In this week's wrap, Jessica covers:(0:22) The Tech sector powering up 4% to a 20-year high(0:50) Afterpay (ASX:APT) hitting an all-time high & getting upgraded after AUSTRAC clearance(2:05) The ASX200 forming a Golden Cross bullish trend(3:39) The RBA dropping its dire 10% unemployment rate forecast(4:25) Momentum behind economic growth outpacing uncertainty(5:09) Four trading ideas across Health Care, IT & Industrials 

Austrac has completed an audit into Afterpay’s compliance and “will not be taking any further action”. Apple’s company valuation dropped by $113 billion after it unveiled its first 5G iPhones. Twilio, the company that sends text messages for Uber and Airbnb, has make a $4.5 billion acquisition. --- Get insights on your credit score: https://www.flux.finance/creditscore Newsletter Giveaway: https://www.flux.finance/newsletter --- The content in this podcast reflects the views and opinions of the hosts, and is intended for personal and not commercial use. We do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, statement or other information provided or distributed in these episodes.

The futures are suggesting a pull-back of 0.2%, which will trim off some of this week's gain of 1.3%.U.S. equities pulled back for the second session overnight, as investors came to grips that an American COVID-19 stimulus deal wouldn't be reached before the November 3 presidential election.As for Commodities: The oil price lifted over 2% for the second day, nudging over US$41.11. Gold firmed 1% higher to US$1,905. What to watch today:The future for coal exports to China: BHP (ASX:BHP) confirmed that Chinese customers have deferred orders of Australian coal. Reporting today: Alumina (ASX:AWC) and Whitehaven Coal (ASX:WHC).AGMs today: Audinate Group (ASX:AD8), ARB Corporation (ASX:ARB) and Perpetual (ASX:PPT).The unemployment rate is expected to rise from 6.8% to 7.1% with 35,000 jobs expected to be lost in September amid Victoria being the second most populated state in lockdown. Data from the Australian Banking Association tells us that repayments have resumed for about half of the deferred loans.Trading ideas:Afterpay (ASX:APT) had its price target increased to $121.00 by Bell Potter. We have not heard from other brokers yet but are expecting more upgrades given APT passed the external monetary laundering AUSTRAC audit, with the body saying it would not investigate Afterpay further. UBS restamped Zip (ASX:Z1P) as a sell with a $5.50 target. We know Zip's results yesterday at face value were strong, but Zip's results were weaker than what the market was expecting given it's taken over QuadPay.Following CSL's (ASX:CSL) AGM yesterday, Citi maintained the blood therapy business as a Buy with a $325 target, with the market focused on FY21 and the strong demand for plasma and blood therapies.Adairs (ASX:ADH), Whisper (ASX:WSP) and MNF Group (ASX:MNF) are all showing bullish charting signals - according to Trading Central

After five days of straight gains, it looks like some profit taking is in order today. The futures are suggesting a fall of 0.9% today. The reason sentiment is likely to be weak today is because global equities pulled back overnight with the UK recording its highest daily rise in COVID-19 deaths.In the U.S., Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine study was paused due to an unexplained illness in a patient study, seeing J&J shares slide 2.3%.What to watch today:The oil price gained 2% to US$40.17, while Gold fell about 2% to US$1,894.Afterpay (ASX:APT) received finalisations and clearance from AUSTRAC's audit.Bank of Queensland (ASX:BOQ) reported its net profit fell 61%. Auckland International Airport (ASX:AIA) and Aurizon Holdings (ASX:AZJ) also report. AGMs today: CSL (ASX:CSL), Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX:CWY) and Aurizon Holdings (ASX:AZJ).Overnight, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revised its global economic growth forecasts higher to a 4.4% contraction, up from negative 4.9% growth for 2020.  Trading ideas:Orica (ASX:ORI), a leading explosives manufacturer was reiterated as a Citi Buy with a new increased target of $19.50. Citi is expecting medium-term earnings growth underpinned by higher pricing, increased technology sales and better plant utilisation. Following Telstra's (ASX:TLS) AGM yesterday UBS maintained Telstra as a Buy with $3.70 target. BCI Minerals (ASX:BCI), Silver Lake Resources (ASX:SLR) and Ramelius Resources (ASX:RMS) are all showing bullish charting signals - according to Trading Central.

Lub tuam txhab nyiaj raug tsoom fwv Australia lub koom haum Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) nplua nyiaj txog $1.3 billion vim nws raug liam tias ua txhaum tej cai xa nyiaj tsis dawb huv, xav nyiaj pab tej neeg phem thiab xa nyiaj rau tej neeg siv quab yuam me nyuam yaus.

In this episode of the Three Lines of Defence Podcast I provide you with a market update on what is happening across the banking and financial services sector in Australia. I give updates and explanations on the hiring processes and the current status of the industry in this pandemic.In this episode we discuss:Hiring across Banking, Insurance, Superannuation & Asset Management.Expansion in Financial Crime Compliance.The expectation of increased regulatory pressure and litigation throughout 2021.Expanding budgets for compliance and headcount.Regulatory reforms impacting the insurance sector.Skills and jobs in demand.Main sector drivers for hiring.Status of compensation and bonuses in the industry.

Ngân hàng Westpac đã đồng ý trả món tiền phạt lớn nhất từ trước đến nay trong lịch sử các doanh nghiệp Úc, để dàn xếp vụ kiện do cơ quan bài trừ tội phạm tài chính Úc truy tố. Trung tâm Báo cáo và Phân tích Chuyển Tiền Úc Châu thường được biết là AUSTRAC cáo buộc ngân hàng nầy vi phạm các luật lệ về rửa tiền và chống khủng bố, trong đó một số vụ có thể liên quan đến việc lạm dụng trẻ em.

The easing of responsible lending laws saw the banks back in favour with investors helping the ASX 200 to a 1.5% gain. Westpac was also helped by the settlement of its anti-money laundering case with Austrac - despite the $1.3 billion bill being the biggest fine in Australian corporate history. It led the way with a 7.4% surge, followed by NAB (up 6.86%), ANZ (up 6.3%) and CBA (up 3%). Miners were also up. S&P futures are up as well indicating another positive night ahead on Wall St. Have a great weekend!Our top three VODs are:Westpac's $1.3b fine will hurt its dividend; CBA is still pick of the bunchPrefabricating data is no walk in the cloudPioneer back on the boards after agreeing to $190m debt package See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kia ora,Welcome to Friday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news the chronic economic weaknesses from the pandemic aren't going away.American new jobless claims came in higher than expected at +870,000 last week and higher than the prior week. (Analysts expected +840,000.) Continuing claims were lower by -167,000 in the week as benefits expired for increasing numbers.Sales of new homes however were a bright spot, surging up to a 14 year high and mirroring the rising activity in the existing homes market. The median sales price of a new home is now US$312,000 (NZ$475,000).The Kansas City Fed said its regional factory survey shows their expansion continuing but fading. But activity there is still about -20% below the levels of a year ago.In Washington, the US Treasury Secretary is raising expectations that more fiscal stimulus is possible soon. Wall Street noticed and was up on the expectation. But that expectation is fading fast now.In Canada, Moody's is predicting average house prices will fall by -6.7% in 2021 as their recovery stalls, economic stimulus fades and debt problems increase. Toronto and Vancouver won't be spared, they say.This comes as new data shows that employment, earnings and hours worked in Canada have been rising recently.In Australia, it turns out the huge AU$1.3 bln penalty that their AML regulator hit Westpac with is the world's largest fine anywhere outside of the US. And the regulator says they have another large non-bank institution they are targeting.In New York, the S&P500 is up +0.1% in early afternoon trade after hopes for some new fiscal stimulus were raised. It was up +0.8% earlier. They follow European markets that were generally lower by about -0.6%. London fell -1.3%. Yesterday Shanghai ended its session down -1.7% and Hong Kong was down -1.8%. Tokyo was down -1.1%. The ASX200 ended down -0.8%, and the NZX50 Capital Index ended down -0.1%.The latest global compilation of COVID-19 data is here. The global tally is 31,993,000 and up +279,000 in one day. Global deaths now exceed 978,000.Just under a quarter of all reported cases globally are in the US, which is up +46,000 overnight to 7,159,000. Their death total is now just over 207,000 and back rising at +1000 per day.In Australia, there have now been 26,983 COVID-19 cases reported, and that is only +10 more cases from yesterday. Deaths are up slightly at 861. Their recovery rate is now just on 90%.The UST 10yr yield is down -1 bp at just under 0.67%. The price of gold will start today up by +US$10 at US$1865/oz. And silver has had an outsized gain overnight.Oil prices have inched up again and are now just under US$40.50/bbl in the US, while the international price is little-changed at just under US$42/bbl.The Kiwi dollar starts today at 65.6 USc and a small firming overnight. Against the Australian dollar we are also firm at 92.8 AUc. Against the euro we are marginally firmer at 56.2 euro cents. That means our TWI-5 has inched up to 69.2.The bitcoin price is up +2.1% from this time yesterday, and now at US$10,686.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.And get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz.Kia ora. I'm David Chaston. We will do this again, on Monday. 

ធនាគារWestpac បានយល់ព្រមបង់ប្រាក់ពិន័យច្រើនបំផុត​មិន​ធ្លាប់​មាន​ពីមុនមក​ក្នុងប្រវតិ្តសាស្រ្ត​សាជីវកម្មអូស្រ្តាលី ដើម្បីដោះស្រាយរឿងក្តី​ដែលបាន​ចោទប្រកាន់ដោយនិយតករបទឧក្រិដ្ឋហិរញ្ញវត្ថុ​។ មជ្ឈមណ្ឌលវិភាគនិងរបាយការណ៍ប្រតិបត្តិការអូស្រ្តាលី (AUSTRAC) បានចោទប្រកាន់ថា​ធនាគារនេះ​បានរំលោភច្បាប់ប្រឆាំងនឹងការលាងលុយកខ្វក់ និងហិរញ្ញប្បទានប្រឆាំងភេរវកម្ម ដែលករណីខ្លះអាចទាក់ទងនឹងការកេងប្រវ័ញ្ចលើកុមារទៀតផង។

Given Westpac's recent AUSTRAC woes, our friends Ulrika & Krishaan are legends in this area & here to help. Situations like this are why their division exists! 460degrees have pulled together a practice of specialists well versed in regulations, policies & frameworks. The team have already implemented TMS's for large financials institutions and have regulator backgrounds, including AUSTRAC!#riskmanagement #compliance #infosecurity #business #news

Welcome to Finance and Fury.  The future landscape of superannuation – the rise of megafunds through compelled mergers Numerous bodies, including regulators and government, have been keen for superannuation funds to merge The merging of several larger superannuation funds are currently underway creating so-called mega funds. On the flipside, there are smaller superannuation funds, particularly niche funds who focus on areas such as ethical investments, that are holding out against the pressure to merge. This episode – we will focus on the issue of mergers in superannuation, where it can bring benefits and where it cannot – implications for the future of superannuation   The consolidation of superannuation funds is primarily being driven by APRA and superannuation trustees - believe such moves can improve the super system and lead to better outcomes   This belief is supported by findings from the Productivity Commission (2018) review of the efficiency and competitiveness of the Australian superannuation system. Three findings pertinent to mergers were: Compelling cost savings from realised scale have not been systematically passed on to members as lower fees or higher returns. Much scale remains elusive with too few mergers. Rivalry between funds in the default segment is superficial, and there are signs of unhealthy competition in the choice segment (including product proliferation). Many funds lack scale, with 93 APRA-regulated funds — half the total — having assets under $1 billion. The default segment outperforms the system on average, but the way members are allocated to default products has meant many (at least 1.6 million member accounts) have ended up in an underperforming product, eroding nearly half their balance by retirement. APRA – Academic study conducted - found that generally members benefited from being in larger superannuation funds for three reasons: Larger not-for-profit funds provide diversification benefits of investing in more asset classes including unlisted property and private equity. Larger funds avoid the scale diseconomies in investment returns documented in studies of equity mutual funds. Larger funds make substantial savings by spreading fixed operating costs (such as IT infrastructure) over a larger asset base Projections – Major areas – APRA: Corporate, Industry, public sector and retail – the SMSF which is ATO The number of APRA-regulated super funds in Australia is set to shrink considerably. In its Super Insights Report (2019), KPMG estimates APRA-regulated funds will fall from 217 to just 85 in 2029. Corporate funds will fall from 24 to six; industry funds from 38 to 12; public sector funds from 37 to 15; and retail funds from 118 to 52. the number of SMSFs is projected to grow from 596,225 to 770,759 by 2029. Australia’s super assets have ballooned to $2.9 trillion as of September 2019, making it the world’s fourth-largest retirement savings pool. The nation’s super assets are forecast to more than triple to $10.2 trillion by 2038, according to Deloitte’s recent report - Dynamics of the Australian Superannuation System According to Rice Warner’s Superannuation Market Projection 2019report - within five years - the industry will be dominated by nine funds controlling $1.7 trillion includes a merged QSuper/Sunsuper with $350b of assets, AustralianSuper with $325b, AMP with $200b and UniSuper with $150b. Looking forward - When combined with the strong growth of super savings to $10.2 trillion by 2038, these megafunds will make super funds an increasingly powerful force in corporate Australia, particularly in listed markets. If funds continue to hold a similar allocation of assets to Australian shares as they currently do, Deloitte says they will “dominate the Australian Stock Exchange holdings” and estimates the proportion of the ASX owned by super funds will almost double to 60 per cent by 2038 Beyond what the productivity commission mentioned - Why merge? Outflows and sustainability – Net cash outflows The aging population is another reason that there is pressure to merge. As the demographic of a superannuation fund’s membership ages, there will be an increasing level of outflows from the fund. According to KPMG (2019), in 2018 one-third of funds were in an outflow position, while the median fund retained approximately 17 cents in every dollar received. Sustainability of superannuation funds Of course, outflows need to be at a sustainable level and APRA is concerned that this may not be the case for many superannuation funds. Liquidity issues – super funds with outflows may struggle Increasing the scale of the funds due to the size of the super - The benefits of scale can include: lower per member operating cost (for example, the cost of developing technology can be shared over a greater number of people) more influence to advocate on behalf of members – more powerful companies - Issues - Best interests duty of what is in the members actual interests or the superannuation funds interest trustees will also need to consider whether the transfer would breach the obligation to perform duties of acting in the best interests of their members has been lots of talk about why small or under-performing funds have not merged with large funds – Small vs large funds - If a small fund has high fees, high investment costs, high operating costs and it merges into a larger fund that has lower of all of these, all else being equal, it is a very clear case for the small fund However, while it may only be marginal impact to the large fund, it is difficult to prove how the merger is in the best interests of its members. Failed mergers – not all internal players of super funds her on - contention over job roles has been blamed for the failure of some mergers to occur proposed merger between Australian Catholic Super (ACS) and Australian Catholic Superannuation and Retirement Fund (ACSRF) to create an $18 billion fund in 2018 came unstuck when the former demanded that it be able to appoint the chair of the board failed merger came under scrutiny at the Royal Commission into Misconduct in Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industries, with Commissioner Hayne inquiring why it mattered who merged into who Efficiencies not guaranteed – especially the scale or operational efficiencies Where fee arrangements are tied to volume (either in value of assets or number of members), scale efficiencies might not be as easy to achieve as one might assume. However - increased bargaining power can see a renegotiation of terms with service providers to reduce the cost base for all members – look at the PDS for super – has management fees, ICRs, operating costs, borrowing and property costs - but require that trustees have an active strategy for managing outsourced functions – otherwise, there is no incentive to reduce these fees as the percentage scale just means more money One benefit which is promoted is that these super accounts will have access to direct investments into areas such as property and infrastructure – but this comes with a downside - need to be managed with liquidity risks Lack of membership diversification of choice of funds - impacts of the coronavirus on the superannuation system had revealed a structural weakness that had long been hiding in plain sight; the failure to diversify fund membership, which can be as dangerous as failure to diversify investments - we need to ask ourselves whether such proposals which essentially double down on the same set of risks are wise... Are such mergers – motivated more by super’s industrial relations legacy than by modern-day concepts of prudent risk management – to the benefit of their members? Is there going to be a role for smaller superannuation funds – reasons for mergers is that the majority of chronic underperformers are found in the smaller-end of the superannuation industry - not the whole story Smaller funds may not have scale - but they can have some advantages in some situations smaller superannuation funds are nimble and are able to take advantage of small but profitable investments that the larger funds overlook because it is not worth their time for the amount of money involved – or cannot take a position worthwhile into Managed funds have issued with this – move the price of assets when buying in or selling – reduces the returns Niche funds– a subset of smaller funds that cater to particular interests, such as ethical investing – may also struggle to play an important role in the superannuation ecosystem where mergers are being promoted by policy – These services could be lost if they were swallowed up by larger funds Would provide limited options or ability for members to line their superannuation up with their investment philosophy some of these funds are seeing rapid inflows of members and funds- been the fastest growing superannuation funds over both one and five year timeframes for inflows     Implications for the industry if consolidation continues Study by KPMG 2019 -consolidation is likely to see the rise of what has begun to be known as the ‘mega funds’ – that have ownership over most of the ASX – control companies – Super funds are expected to use their increasing clout – over the past 15-20 years - industry funds were largely passive shareholders – but this has been changing - becoming activist shareholders funds are starting to invest based around climate change and corporate governance - called environmental, social and governance (ESG) decisions Might have seen in the news about the divestment from Coal companies and other industries One of the most important implication is that the power of superannuation funds - particularly that of mega funds Some concerns – example - Australian Super and Westpac in the AUSTRAC scandal - AustralianSuper, Cbus and Hostplus did not support a spill of the Westpac board (other shareholders were pushing for) following the money-laundering scandal in 2019 Best in class classifications - While slightly tangential to the discussion about mergers, the Productivity Commission recommendation are to have a top 10 ‘best in class’ default superannuation funds based around performance Has an overlap with mergers and what the industry will look like – though it is important to note that just because a superannuation fund is one of the largest funds does not necessarily mean it will be one of the top-10 ‘best in class’ funds For those outside of the top-10 ‘best in class’ default superannuation funds, inflows are going to become more of a problem as they will have to rely on people to make an active choice to join their superannuation fund But no guarantee that the best in class would be that next year or the year after This will likely cause further consolidation across the industry as many funds will no longer be able to rely on default members to prop up inflows – basically getting a stamp – further consolidating power into the top super with FUM Predictions are that over the next 15 years superannuation will increase from $2.7 trillion to $4.8 trillion, discounted to today’s dollars - There are two factors which have a range of implications: 1) Continued consolidation. 2) The increase in FUM which greatly surpasses GDP – where there may not be enough assets to invest in reducing the quality of investments   Applying this to your own situation – Pay attention to your accounts – the merging may have issues that impact you as well – May have to update things like Binding nominations – Also would want to double check contributions are updated   Summary - The superannuation industry looks set to go through a period of consolidation at the behest of APRA and the government The aim of this is to create better outcomes for members by driving underperforming funds out of the system. However – the practical issues around mergers is complex – such as what advantages this will bring, and whether it is in members’ best interests Regardless it is likely that we will see the rise of mega funds and a decrease in the number of smaller funds Mega funds are expected to have increasing power over corporate Australia and through that, the economy But like a lot of policy – it may not work out as intended and have large unintended consequences Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in contact you can do so here: http://financeandfury.com.au/contact/

Our Friday episode is our interview episode and today we dive into the world of international money laundering... something a bit different for the show but one that is fascinating.Aron Cranenburgh is our podcast guest. Aron is a former AUSTRAC Senior Intelligence Analyst with 12 years' experience in Financial Crime, Economics, and Education. While at AUSTRAC, intelligence produced by Aron led to several significant operational outcomes (e.g. arrest/convictions, asset forfeitures, civil penalties, and disruptions).Aron can be contacted on - https://www.amlrisksolutions.com.au/In today s disruptive world, good leadership skills will always stand you in great stead. If you are looking to build better leadership skills, consider our sponsors. Think & Grow Business and the Coach Curl Academy.Think & Grow Business the home of the Think & Grow Business Mastermind, where we focus on personal, professional, and business growth. Check out thinkandgrowbusiness.com.auThe Coach Curl Academy has over 75 programs to help you build a better you. Join for just $1 for the first month. The Academy that equips you and enhances your mindset, leadership, and business. Check it out at thecoachcurlacademy.comYou are standing Stronger, Braver, and Wiser. Don t forget the golden rule – Don t be an A-Hole

Our Friday episode is our interview episode and today we dive into the world of international money laundering... something a bit different for the show but one that is fascinating.Aron Cranenburgh is our podcast guest. Aron is a former AUSTRAC Senior Intelligence Analyst with 12 years’ experience in Financial Crime, Economics, and Education. While at AUSTRAC, intelligence produced by Aron led to several significant operational outcomes (e.g. arrest/convictions, asset forfeitures, civil penalties, and disruptions).Aron can be contacted on - https://www.amlrisksolutions.com.au/In today s disruptive world, good leadership skills will always stand you in great stead. If you are looking to build better leadership skills, consider our sponsors. Think & Grow Business and the Coach Curl Academy.Think & Grow Business the home of the Think & Grow Business Mastermind, where we focus on personal, professional, and business growth. Check out thinkandgrowbusiness.com.auThe Coach Curl Academy has over 75 programs to help you build a better you. Join for just $1 for the first month. The Academy that equips you and enhances your mindset, leadership, and business. Check it out at thecoachcurlacademy.comYou are standing Stronger, Braver, and Wiser. Don t forget the golden rule – Don t be an A-Hole

The Australian's banking reporter Joyce Moullakis explains the negotiations taking place between Westpac and financial intelligence agency AUSTRAC.

Well, we’re in a recession... -- Fun with numbers… no really -- How is the market *both* up 30% and down 17% at the same time? -- Westpac throws the kitchen sink at the AUSTRAC debacle -- We saddle up the high horse: BHP makes $12b worth of profit in Singapore… tax free. -- And we dip into the Fool mailbag!

Important! Austrac is accepting compliance reports up to June 30th! See Austrac releases here: https:https://www.austrac.gov.au/about-us/our-recent-work/covid-19-update-compliance-report The GRC Professional caught up with Andrew Ham of LOD Executive Legal Counsel Risk & Compliance speaks about the potential impact that the current 'situation' might have on AML compliance and the annual compliance report. Happy Listening!

Welcome to Finance and Fury, I’m Louis. Today, I want to talk about overcoming fears and focusing on your purpose and making a plan to become self-reliant – fears of the virus, or government responses and losing jobs - and instead focusing on what can get you through hard times – purpose and relationships – focusing on the positives   There is a lot of fear going around – it a massive distraction and disruption to almost everyone’s lives – People are losing jobs – losing an income and being out of work is very stressful Governments are taking more control – population is becoming reliant on governments Central banks taking further control over financial markets – QE, money printing and funding the government deficit spending General panic hoarding goods and people turning on their fellow humans – as they are competition or a threat of getting them infected   The constant reporting creates worry – either getting the disease, losing your livelihood, or having to fight others for the precious resource of TP – availability bias – the framing as well – saying the virus is something to worry about – but the Government are the ones implementing these draconian rules – but this is in our best interest of course And it seems like there is no way around it – governments telling people and business what they can do to the extreme – fining people and businesses for not doing as told – forcing people into shutting their own businesses down or having to be more than 1.5m apart in public – Guess speeding fines weren’t enough – not fining for not socially distancing But what is bad for your health – being in a reactionary state – things happening to you – destroys cells which affect your microbiology Being isolated and not able to go outside and get some Vitamin D – creates a horrible state for humans to live But a very easy environment for Government’s to control – Divide and conquer – Caesar did this to the Gaul’s We are easy prey when isolated – as society has become – with this disease – now people are becoming ever more so   people get sick and die - Fact of life – people die – 210,000 every day –Government has turned this into control Stalin – one death is a tragedy – one million is a statistic – Irony in this statement – for those close to us – it is a tragedy to lose someone – but we all must go through it – but when it comes to Government reports – these deaths are just statistics – and statistics can be manipulated – people dying of heart attacks – but they are added to corona deaths Made people afraid of numbers – and focusing on the negatives – preying on availability heuristics – but not reporting on other numbers – A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors. Other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. Medical errors are the third-leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer But there are plenty of good things happening – What to do? Become self-reliant is the only way out – the government controls are ramping up – so have to get outside of this – and reliance – like with Age Pension Irony in me saying this – to be in my profession I need to be registered and controlled by 5 Government Agencies – ATO, ASIC, AUSTRAC, TPB, AFCA – even with this – focusing on your purpose can help get through their interference and focus on the positives – and make part of your long term purpose to become FI   Purpose – to become financially independent - what does this mean – income self-generated and not relying on the Government – To help work out your Purpose – get the workbooks from FF – in the members section – if in lock down – good chance to complete the workbooks   First step - Take 100% responsibility – Don’t be a victim and let things happen to you - To be successful you need to be 100% responsible for your own life. How to start taking 100% responsibility: Give up all excuses – have to stop playing the victim - takes a lot of less mental energy by giving excuses up. They don’t matter. Past is the past. all the reason why you can’t and why you haven’t up until now, and all your blaming of outside circumstances. You have to give them all up forever. Change your response to events – try to make this a habit - takes time to change. need to regain control over your mindset which will determine your behaviours in responses to the event. The first question should be “what can be done to get the best outcome?”. Equation: Event + Response = Outcome (Jack Canfield) If you get stuck in a traffic jam - ‘I hate this traffic, this sucks’ or ‘It isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things’. One will lead to a better outcome than the other by reducing your anger at the situation. If the traffic was the problem, then everyone would have had the same response, but as you can respond in the way you want, you can get a better outcome. It is important to change your responses if your current ones aren’t getting you the outcomes you are after. If you continue the same behaviour (responses) then you get the same results. This is the process of learning through failure You can’t control the event, but you can control your response which leads to a better outcome. Successful people wouldn’t be where they are if they let their excuses take control Blaming and excuses are a waste of time. It may make you feel better in the short term, but it doesn’t solve the problem and takes away energy. Give up complaining! We are all guilty of complaining, either voicing complaints to others or mumbling them to ourselves. The truth is that we complain about events that we know can yield a better outcome than our current situation. We don’t complain about things that just exist. For instance, we don’t complain about gravity being gravity. To give up complaining, change is needed in your response. We normally don’t though as changing a response can be uncomfortable. People may judge you but who cares? It will take effort but it is worth it! Complaining is pointless in most situations as we normally complain to the wrong people anyway. You will complain about your partner to your friends, about your boss to other employees. We never talk to the person we have the issues with. Overall, taking 100% responsibility makes life simpler. If you accept that you have 100% responsibility, therefore control you can become the master of your own success - the world doesn’t owe you anything, you have to create it!   Once you are there – Figure out what your purpose is – this is the path that will give you guidance It is important to find your purpose as if you don’t know what you want, it is impossible to get it. ‘what is the meaning of life?’ - is no one overall meaning to life except to exist and eventually die But there is a meaning to your life. You just need to find it and live up to your potential – purpose you need to decide what you want and what is important. You have to Be clear why you are here! Have to look at what you want – not what others want This is a societal norm, which is slowly changing. Most people spend their lives conforming in to societal dreams. Programming in life slowly changes our real purposes to conform to the new social norms. This leads to taking actions in life which will get the approval of others rather than ourselves We are told from childhood the word ‘no’ and ‘don’t do that’. While this was said to help protect us, it has led to crushing dreams. While conformity has been important in evolution (by not sticking out and getting ousted by the tribe), it has lead into conforming to a normal level of life or living someone else’s dreams. This is why you need a reason to get out of bed in the morning which is your purpose. If you have this purpose, something to work for, you will be successful and happier along the way. What is your purpose? – if you don’t know, to figure this out requires a bit of brain storming. need to write some lists of things that are important in your life. Use the workbook: I care about, What I am great at, I love doing – try to write 20 things for each: total of 60 The more the merrier – doesn’t have to be something big, more = more brainstorming beside each one put a plus or minus against it – if you really enjoy or are great at = put a plus against it. something that you just put in there to make up the numbers, put a minus sign against it. From those from each list – select the top 2 with plus signs against them – put them in the below this This will leave you with 6 things in total. You might find that the things you are great at are the things that you love doing, because you care about them! common to see this sort of overlap as generally, if you enjoy doing something, you are normally pretty good at it! This is how you find your purpose in life. It will take some playing around with to get right. Be honest with yourself. example: care: Making a difference in lives, great at: personal finance, I enjoy doing: Teaching It really is that simple and needs to be refined over time, but what is really important is action. Taking action towards your purpose will be the difference between following your purpose versus following someone else’s. We will cover off on the action steps in the next episode.   Once you have your purpose, you need to know what you want out of it: getting the vision right and start achieving it! Time to build a vision of your ideal life - Having a purpose is the reason to get out of bed each day. Having a vision, allows you to complete a picture of your ideal life. A vision is an ideal picture of how you want your life to look - Your vision should show you where you want to head and provide some motivation and focus to help achieve this. Life happens, there will always be setbacks but the best way of overcoming setbacks is keeping your long-term vision in mind and working towards this. So how do you build your vision? - first step is to make three lists, What I want: This list is for the material things you wish to have in your life. From houses, cars, even owning a business. What I want to be: This list is for the type of person you want to be, from happy and positive to being a leader in your field. What I want to achieve before I die: This list is practically a bucket list where you can think about the things that you want to achieve in life. Under each heading, you need to list 20 things for each one so once you are done you should have 60 in total. hard to come up with 20 things for each, so listing small things or expanding on larger ‘wants’ can help. So instead of just saying ‘I want to be successful’, list out individual items which mean success to you. Once you have a list of 60 things - sort through your lists and placing each in to seven areas of your life. This covers off 7 areas in total. For each one you need to have a clear picture of what each area should look like! Work/career – What are you doing for your career? Is it something that you enjoy? Is it something you can have freedom? Can you make a lot of money from it? Finances – What does your financial situation look like? Are you out of debts? Do you have a portfolio of investments, paying you an income? This is the key to financial independence after all. You need to have enough in finances to give you all the free time in the world to focus on everything else. Free time/Recreation – What do you do in your free time? Are you going on holidays each year? Health/Fitness – What is your ideal fitness? Are you 80 still in great physical and mental health? Relationships – Marriages, kids, parents, everyone etc. Contribution to the world – Do you give back to society? Personal goals – What do you want to do before you die? Can fit into the previous – so merge Remember, that your personal vision is where you want to be – so you need a clear picture on what it looks like, what it feels like, you should almost be able to taste it!   My purpose – help people become financially independent – and through doing this become FI myself Face your fears and anxieties so they don't become debilitating. Identify ways to create a sense of personal control or mastery in your life. Practice stress reduction techniques, such as mindfulness meditation or get outside and exercise. Shift your focus to the positive emotions in daily life Get outside of the Fear – Don’t let Government dictate to you what you should be afraid of – as this is a control mechanism – done a few eps months ago on how trauma is a tool used for population control – search trauma-based society Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in contact you can do so here: http://financeandfury.com.au/contact/

Join Alex Whitlock, Annie Kane and Charbel Kadib as they delve into the latest themes and developments in the home loan market. In this episode, they discuss Westpac's senior leadership changes in the fallout of AUSTRAC's civil penalty orders, Westpac's contracting home loan volumes, and the tabling of the amended best interests duty legislation for mortgage brokers. This week they discuss: Former Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer's resignation Macquarie's growth in market share Calls for clarity around the best interests duty legislation Momentum Intelligence has launched the Consumer Access to Mortgages survey, which aims to understand the public's attitudes, perceptions and priorities in a bid to quantify the value of the third-party distribution channel to the Australian public. You can share the Consumer Access to Mortgages survey by downloading the relevant resources here. If you are interested in finding out more about the Broker Pulse initiative, you can find out more about the survey here.

Westpac is mired in scandal after allegations it committed 23 million money laundering breaches, some linked to child exploitation. Should the financial crime regulator AUSTRAC be better resourced to stop this happening again? 

The Federal Attorney General has proposed we treat social media companies as publishers. Will this punish Silicon Valley lefties or silence Australia's conservative voices for fear of our crazy defamation laws? (1:59-24:04) As the CEO of our wokest bank, Westpac, taps the mat, what should we make of its bruising encounter with regulator Austrac's over money-laundering claims? (24:04-37:12) Political parties are declining as social institutions so what does this mean for our democracy? (37:12-48:57) Your hosts Scott Hargreaves and Dr Chris Berg are joined by IPA Research Fellow, Andrew Bushnell and National Manager of Generation Liberty, Renee Gorman to discuss these questions as well as divulge their culture picks including the new documentary Rise of Jordan Peterson, a new book on the sorry state of our Universities, Season 3 of The Crown and the movie that launched film director Michael Mann (48:57-1:05:21).   Show Notes: Christian Porter's defamation reform would be a catastrophic mistake; Dr Chris Berg and Dr Aaron Lane, Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/national/christian-porter-s-defamation-reform-would-be-a-catastrophic-mistake-20191123-p53dg4.html The Woke Bank Asleep at The Wheel; John Roskam, IPA Executive Director https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/the-woke-bank-asleep-at-the-wheel Get out of your own way, Unleashing productivity; Deloitte https://www2.deloitte.com/au/en/pages/building-lucky-country/articles/get-out-of-your-own-way.html Regulatory Dark Matter; Kurt Wallace, IPA Research Fellow https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/IPA-Report-Regulatory-Dark-Matter-How-Unaccountable-Regulators-Subvert-Democracy-by-Imposing-Red-Tape-without-Transparency.pdf John Howard warns of 'existential challenges' for Liberals and Nationals; Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/john-howard-warns-of-existential-challenges-for-liberals-and-nationals-20191121-p53cyn.html   Culture Picks: The Rise of Jordan Peterson; Patricia Marcoccia https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10469384/ Melbourne screening of the Rise of Jordan Peterson https://ipapeterson.eventbrite.com.au/ CAMPUS MELTDOWN The Deepening Crisis in Australian Universities; William O. Coleman https://www.connorcourtpublishing.com.au/CAMPUS-MELTDOWN-The-Deepening-Crisis-in-Australian-Universities--William-O-Coleman-editor_p_288.html The Crown Season 3; Peter Morgan https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4786824/ Thief; Michael Mann https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083190/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8

Brian Hartzer, CEO of an Australian Bank, Westpac, has been asked to step down on December 2nd, 2019, over issues regarding a money-laundering scandal. Australia’s Federal Court, along with the country’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC alleged that Westpac breached anti-money laundering and terrorist financing obligations. Westpac was accused of breaching the law 23 times, as well as failure on their part to scrutinize international transactions that allegedly involved sending money to child pornography operations overseas. As a result, Hartzer was identified as the first executive to take the fall. He would be resigning next month with a full salary of 2.7 million dollars (1.8 million U.S. dollars) for 2020 but would be denied his 2019 bonuses. Two top bank officials would be sanctioned as well. Chairman of Westpac, Lindsay Maxsted was advised to extend his retirement to early 2020 and Ewen Crouch, re-election bid withdrawn. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/newscast-africa/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Alex Whitlock, Annie Kane and Charbel Kadib as they delve into the latest themes and developments in the home loan market. In this episode, they delve into the anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing regulator AUSTRAC's civil penalty orders against Westpac, as well as the latest class actions against ANZ and Westpac in relation to the mis-selling of comprehensive credit insurance. This week they discuss... Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer's response to the allegations Whether ramifications for the alleged breaches are adequate Previous cases of banks mis-selling CCI

【人社部首次公布100个短缺职业排行】11月21日，中国就业培训技术指导中心发布《2019年第三季度全国招聘求职100个短缺职业排行》，这是全国层面首次汇总发布人力资源市场招聘求职短缺职业排行。排行显示，营销员、收银员、餐厅服务员、保安员、保洁员、商品营业员、家政服务员、车工、焊工、装卸搬运工排名前十。（中新网） 【黄奇帆谈控房价，决不允许“背个银行”炒地皮】中国国际经济交流中心副理事长黄奇帆21日在创新经济论坛上指出，炒高房子价的主要动力就是炒地皮，控房价决不允许炒地皮。任何房产商买土地，批租土地，必须自有资本，而不能后边“背个银行”。只要把土地地价控制了，房价不会上去的。（国是直通车 ） 【艾媒咨询：2022年刷脸支付用户将达7.6亿】艾媒咨询昨日发布《2019年中国刷脸支付技术应用社会价值专题研究报告》。报告显示，在移动支付市场规模逐渐扩大以及人脸识别技术发展渐趋成熟的背景下，2019年成为刷脸支付的“元年”，刷脸支付用户有望增至1.18亿人，并保持高速增长，到了2022年将突破7.6亿人，届时将取代扫码支付成为主要支付方式。 【牛津词典年度词汇公布：气候紧急事件】据《卫报》报道，《牛津词典》宣布“气候紧急事件”（climate emergency）为2019年年度词汇。牛津词典将其定义为“需要采取紧急行动以减少或停止气候变化，并避免由此造成的不可逆转的环境破坏。至此，三大英文词典年度词汇均聚焦气候变化 ：“升级回收”(upcycling)和“气候罢工”(climate strike)分别是剑桥词典和柯林斯词典的2019年年度词汇。 【2019胡润套现企业家30强：马云家族一年套现40亿】2019胡润套现企业家30强发布，30位大陆企业家过去一年共套现918.5亿，为历年最多的一次。华夏幸福52岁的王文学套现131亿位列榜单第一位；广东企业家上榜仍然最多，共有9位；许家印，杨惠妍等地产大佬纷纷上榜。而去年排名第一的马云家族通过减持美股上市公司阿里巴巴的部分股权，套现40亿元，今年位列榜单第6位。（胡润百富） 【知名妖股闪崩98%，市值蒸发450亿！】作为一家拥有中国最大的大理石矿山及分销网络的大理石生产商，雅高控股今年以过山车般暴涨暴跌的行情成为2019年度最知名妖股。11月21日，雅高控股一度大跌98.18%。上午11：04起，公司股票暂停交易。停牌前报0.305港元，仍有97.94%的跌幅，450亿港元市值蒸发。某市场人士表示，该股极有可能是一只庄股，该股流动性太差，去年一年才成交2.14亿元。（21财经） 【超越工商银行 贵州茅台流通市值跃居A股榜首】11月21日收盘，贵州茅台股价下跌0.2%，工商银行股价下跌1.21%。根据wind数据，贵州茅台A股市值（不含限售股）近1.5468万亿元，超过工商银行1.5449万亿元的不含限售股市值，跃居A股流通市值第一。 【乐视网被要求回购普思投资A+轮和B轮股权】昨日，乐视网公告称，公司于近日收到《北京仲裁委员会裁决书》，作为被申请人之一，被要求回购北京普思投资有限公司A+轮和B轮股权。企查查数据显示，北京普思投资由王思聪担任董事长并持股100%。 【部分债权人要求法院驳回贾跃亭破产重组申请，或转为破产清算】11月13日，上海懒财资产管理公司提交申请，要求驳回贾跃亭依照美国破产法第十一章申请的破产重组。对此，11月21日，贾跃亭债务处理小组方面表示，如果懒财方面的诉求获得通过，那么贾跃亭个人破产重组将无法实施，并将被迫转为个人破产清算。（澎湃） 【王思聪再被限制消费 此前刚被取消限制消费令】中国执行信息公开网显示，11月19日，王思聪被北京市第二中级人民法院发布限制消费令。北京市第二中级人民法院于2019年11月04日立案执行申请人嘉兴璟字悌为股权投资基金合伙企业（有限合伙）申请执行王思聪国内非涉外仲裁裁决一案，因王思聪未按执行通知书指定的期间履行生效法律文书确定的给付义务，因此北京市第二中级人民法院对其采取限制消费措施。 【暴风集团：人员流失且无审计机构 或无法如期披露年报】11月21日，暴风集团股份有限公司公告称，由于大华会计师事务所业务规模进一步扩大，2019年报审计业务繁重，在时间和人员安排等方面已不能充分满足公司的需求，特告知辞去2019年报审计会计师。暴风集团表示，公司将按照相关规定尽快聘请新的审计机构。由于人员流失严重和暂无合作的审计机构，公司存在无法在法定期限内披露 2019 年年度报告的风险。 【大众汽车明年在华投资40亿欧元，40%用于电动化】大众中国CEO冯思翰在2019广州车展前表示，大众汽车集团明年计划在华投资40亿欧元，其中40%投资于电动化领域。（财联社） 【美国今发放供货华为的首批豁免许可，约占近 300 份申请的1/4】在把华为放入出口管制实体清单六个月之后，美国政府开始发放允许向华为供货的豁免许可，一些已经提交申请的企业将陆续收到审核通知。此举是华为在被列入实体名单数月之后，其美国的贸易对象首次得到官方许可。这意味着，即使对华为的贸易禁令仍然存在，但半导体公司和部分其他公司可以恢复与华为的贸易往来。（麻省理工科技评论） 【英特尔称PC芯片供货吃紧，就发货延迟向客户道歉】当地时间周三芯片制造商英特尔表示，无法跟上CPU市场需求的增长，并称其个人电脑芯片供应仍“极度紧张”。英特尔在一封信中表示：“尽管我们尽了最大努力，但我们仍未解决这一挑战。”该公司在信中还就发货延迟向客户和合作伙伴道歉。 【软银向银行寻求27.6亿美元贷款，为WeWork提供周转】据外媒报道，为了给共享办公创业公司WeWork提供周转资金，软银集团正在洽谈通过日本主要银行融资3000亿日元（27.6亿美元）。软银正计划提出增持WeWork母公司We Co约30亿美元股份。此外还可以通过贷款和其他方式再向We提供33亿美元。 【维密母公司Q3净亏损扩大近6倍 老牌内衣品牌何去何从？】11月21日， 维密母公司L Brands发布第三季度财报。数据显示，在报告期内，L Brands净亏损扩大近6倍，从去年同期的280万美元增长至2.52亿美元；净销售额同比下跌4%至26.77亿美元，同店销售额同比下降2%。L Brands的主品牌维密的业绩也继续恶化。具体来看，维密品牌的销售额为14.12亿美元，去年同期为15.29亿美元，可比销售额下降了2%，这已经是维密品牌第六个季度录得销售额下滑。（新京报） 【51亿美元索赔，苹果和英特尔对软银旗下的“专利流氓”发起诉讼】苹果公司和英特尔公司20日共同对软银旗下的堡垒投资集团提起反垄断诉讼，指控该集团囤积专利，试图拖住科技公司发展，诉讼金额高达51亿美元。英特尔和苹果共同发表声明称，堡垒集团及其下属公司囤积大量专利，但并不研发任何科技产品，只是为了起诉其他科技公司。该行为违反了美国反垄断法。（财联社） 【SpaceX下一代火箭Starship测试版本发生爆炸】11月21日，SpaceX下一代火箭Starship的测试版本在得克萨斯州进行地面测试时发生部分爆裂，喷发出大量气体，使一些硬件四处飞射。SpaceX CEO埃隆·马斯克此前称，测试飞船可能会在接下来的几个月内进行低空飞行，而某些版本的Starship可能会在六个月内到达地球轨道。爆炸发生后，马斯克表示，SpaceX可能不再使用该特定原型，而将使用更新的型号进行飞行测试。 【澳大利亚一银行被指洗钱超2300万次，CEO致歉，或面临391万亿美元天价罚款】11月20日，澳州反洗钱和反恐融资监察机构AUSTRAC称已对西太平洋银行提起诉讼，指控其洗钱超2300万次，未报告的国际资金转移超1950万笔，金额超70亿美元。该银行或面临391万亿美元罚款，相当于2018年全球GDP的近4倍。（国际金融报）

【人社部首次公布100个短缺职业排行】11月21日，中国就业培训技术指导中心发布《2019年第三季度全国招聘求职100个短缺职业排行》，这是全国层面首次汇总发布人力资源市场招聘求职短缺职业排行。排行显示，营销员、收银员、餐厅服务员、保安员、保洁员、商品营业员、家政服务员、车工、焊工、装卸搬运工排名前十。（中新网） 【黄奇帆谈控房价，决不允许“背个银行”炒地皮】中国国际经济交流中心副理事长黄奇帆21日在创新经济论坛上指出，炒高房子价的主要动力就是炒地皮，控房价决不允许炒地皮。任何房产商买土地，批租土地，必须自有资本，而不能后边“背个银行”。只要把土地地价控制了，房价不会上去的。（国是直通车 ） 【艾媒咨询：2022年刷脸支付用户将达7.6亿】艾媒咨询昨日发布《2019年中国刷脸支付技术应用社会价值专题研究报告》。报告显示，在移动支付市场规模逐渐扩大以及人脸识别技术发展渐趋成熟的背景下，2019年成为刷脸支付的“元年”，刷脸支付用户有望增至1.18亿人，并保持高速增长，到了2022年将突破7.6亿人，届时将取代扫码支付成为主要支付方式。 【牛津词典年度词汇公布：气候紧急事件】据《卫报》报道，《牛津词典》宣布“气候紧急事件”（climate emergency）为2019年年度词汇。牛津词典将其定义为“需要采取紧急行动以减少或停止气候变化，并避免由此造成的不可逆转的环境破坏。至此，三大英文词典年度词汇均聚焦气候变化 ：“升级回收”(upcycling)和“气候罢工”(climate strike)分别是剑桥词典和柯林斯词典的2019年年度词汇。 【2019胡润套现企业家30强：马云家族一年套现40亿】2019胡润套现企业家30强发布，30位大陆企业家过去一年共套现918.5亿，为历年最多的一次。华夏幸福52岁的王文学套现131亿位列榜单第一位；广东企业家上榜仍然最多，共有9位；许家印，杨惠妍等地产大佬纷纷上榜。而去年排名第一的马云家族通过减持美股上市公司阿里巴巴的部分股权，套现40亿元，今年位列榜单第6位。（胡润百富） 【知名妖股闪崩98%，市值蒸发450亿！】作为一家拥有中国最大的大理石矿山及分销网络的大理石生产商，雅高控股今年以过山车般暴涨暴跌的行情成为2019年度最知名妖股。11月21日，雅高控股一度大跌98.18%。上午11：04起，公司股票暂停交易。停牌前报0.305港元，仍有97.94%的跌幅，450亿港元市值蒸发。某市场人士表示，该股极有可能是一只庄股，该股流动性太差，去年一年才成交2.14亿元。（21财经） 【超越工商银行 贵州茅台流通市值跃居A股榜首】11月21日收盘，贵州茅台股价下跌0.2%，工商银行股价下跌1.21%。根据wind数据，贵州茅台A股市值（不含限售股）近1.5468万亿元，超过工商银行1.5449万亿元的不含限售股市值，跃居A股流通市值第一。 【乐视网被要求回购普思投资A+轮和B轮股权】昨日，乐视网公告称，公司于近日收到《北京仲裁委员会裁决书》，作为被申请人之一，被要求回购北京普思投资有限公司A+轮和B轮股权。企查查数据显示，北京普思投资由王思聪担任董事长并持股100%。 【部分债权人要求法院驳回贾跃亭破产重组申请，或转为破产清算】11月13日，上海懒财资产管理公司提交申请，要求驳回贾跃亭依照美国破产法第十一章申请的破产重组。对此，11月21日，贾跃亭债务处理小组方面表示，如果懒财方面的诉求获得通过，那么贾跃亭个人破产重组将无法实施，并将被迫转为个人破产清算。（澎湃） 【王思聪再被限制消费 此前刚被取消限制消费令】中国执行信息公开网显示，11月19日，王思聪被北京市第二中级人民法院发布限制消费令。北京市第二中级人民法院于2019年11月04日立案执行申请人嘉兴璟字悌为股权投资基金合伙企业（有限合伙）申请执行王思聪国内非涉外仲裁裁决一案，因王思聪未按执行通知书指定的期间履行生效法律文书确定的给付义务，因此北京市第二中级人民法院对其采取限制消费措施。 【暴风集团：人员流失且无审计机构 或无法如期披露年报】11月21日，暴风集团股份有限公司公告称，由于大华会计师事务所业务规模进一步扩大，2019年报审计业务繁重，在时间和人员安排等方面已不能充分满足公司的需求，特告知辞去2019年报审计会计师。暴风集团表示，公司将按照相关规定尽快聘请新的审计机构。由于人员流失严重和暂无合作的审计机构，公司存在无法在法定期限内披露 2019 年年度报告的风险。 【大众汽车明年在华投资40亿欧元，40%用于电动化】大众中国CEO冯思翰在2019广州车展前表示，大众汽车集团明年计划在华投资40亿欧元，其中40%投资于电动化领域。（财联社） 【美国今发放供货华为的首批豁免许可，约占近 300 份申请的1/4】在把华为放入出口管制实体清单六个月之后，美国政府开始发放允许向华为供货的豁免许可，一些已经提交申请的企业将陆续收到审核通知。此举是华为在被列入实体名单数月之后，其美国的贸易对象首次得到官方许可。这意味着，即使对华为的贸易禁令仍然存在，但半导体公司和部分其他公司可以恢复与华为的贸易往来。（麻省理工科技评论） 【英特尔称PC芯片供货吃紧，就发货延迟向客户道歉】当地时间周三芯片制造商英特尔表示，无法跟上CPU市场需求的增长，并称其个人电脑芯片供应仍“极度紧张”。英特尔在一封信中表示：“尽管我们尽了最大努力，但我们仍未解决这一挑战。”该公司在信中还就发货延迟向客户和合作伙伴道歉。 【软银向银行寻求27.6亿美元贷款，为WeWork提供周转】据外媒报道，为了给共享办公创业公司WeWork提供周转资金，软银集团正在洽谈通过日本主要银行融资3000亿日元（27.6亿美元）。软银正计划提出增持WeWork母公司We Co约30亿美元股份。此外还可以通过贷款和其他方式再向We提供33亿美元。 【维密母公司Q3净亏损扩大近6倍 老牌内衣品牌何去何从？】11月21日， 维密母公司L Brands发布第三季度财报。数据显示，在报告期内，L Brands净亏损扩大近6倍，从去年同期的280万美元增长至2.52亿美元；净销售额同比下跌4%至26.77亿美元，同店销售额同比下降2%。L Brands的主品牌维密的业绩也继续恶化。具体来看，维密品牌的销售额为14.12亿美元，去年同期为15.29亿美元，可比销售额下降了2%，这已经是维密品牌第六个季度录得销售额下滑。（新京报） 【51亿美元索赔，苹果和英特尔对软银旗下的“专利流氓”发起诉讼】苹果公司和英特尔公司20日共同对软银旗下的堡垒投资集团提起反垄断诉讼，指控该集团囤积专利，试图拖住科技公司发展，诉讼金额高达51亿美元。英特尔和苹果共同发表声明称，堡垒集团及其下属公司囤积大量专利，但并不研发任何科技产品，只是为了起诉其他科技公司。该行为违反了美国反垄断法。（财联社） 【SpaceX下一代火箭Starship测试版本发生爆炸】11月21日，SpaceX下一代火箭Starship的测试版本在得克萨斯州进行地面测试时发生部分爆裂，喷发出大量气体，使一些硬件四处飞射。SpaceX CEO埃隆·马斯克此前称，测试飞船可能会在接下来的几个月内进行低空飞行，而某些版本的Starship可能会在六个月内到达地球轨道。爆炸发生后，马斯克表示，SpaceX可能不再使用该特定原型，而将使用更新的型号进行飞行测试。 【澳大利亚一银行被指洗钱超2300万次，CEO致歉，或面临391万亿美元天价罚款】11月20日，澳州反洗钱和反恐融资监察机构AUSTRAC称已对西太平洋银行提起诉讼，指控其洗钱超2300万次，未报告的国际资金转移超1950万笔，金额超70亿美元。该银行或面临391万亿美元罚款，相当于2018年全球GDP的近4倍。（国际金融报）

Kia ora,and welcome to Wednesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect New Zealand.I'm David Chaston and this is the International edition from Interest.co.nz.Today we lead with news both consumers and courts are influential today.In a widely-watched survey, American consumer confidence slipped in September for a second month in a row. The deepening trade tensions fanned concerns about business and labour market conditions. Consumer spending has been driving the American economy and faltering confidence is an out-sized risk to that expansion.Of course, consumer confidence is a lagging indicator. One leading indicator includes confidence by producers, and in the latest regional Fed survey in the Mid-Atlantic states, the news is generally downbeat as well.It is not all negative in the US, although the positive data out today for house prices is now two months old. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index rose +3.2% in July from a year ago, the same gain reported in June. Prices are still cooling in the largest cities, however.Wall Street is down -0.8% on the flagging consumer confidence data and few signs of progress on the trade front. Benchmark bond yields have fallen. And the oil price has dipped on the expectation of lower demand in the world's largest economy.China seems to have decided to shift its potential soybean orders away from the US to Brazil. Not only will that hurt the Americans, it won't be good for Brazilian deforestation pressures either.Japan latest PMI's for September show an expanding economy that has shown some surprising strength in the past three months, let by its service sector.In Germany, their IFO sentiment survey improved slightly in September. The rise was due to better immediate assessments. However, the outlook for the coming months worsened again. [Advert]With Hatch, anyone can invest in the US share markets.When it comes to learning anything new, making mistakes is part of the learning process.But mistakes in investing can be costly if you don’t learn from them as soon as possible.Visit hatch.as/mistakes to learn about the five most common mistakes investors make, and what you can do to avoid them. In Brussels, an EU court struck down a European Commission order for Starbucks to pay €30 mln in back taxes to the Netherlands. A similar case involving Fiat is awaiting a decision. And Google also won a case involving Europe's right-to-be-forgotten law where the judges rules it can be made to apply globally.In the UK, their Brexit mess got even messier. They have a new prime minister who has lost every vote and decision he has made in his short tenure. It has the hallmarks of a 'failed state'. New elections seem certain soon, but that too may not resolve anything.In Australia, regulator Austrac has ordered the appointment of an external auditor to examine ongoing concerns in regard to PayPal Australia’s compliance with the their anti money laundering laws.At 2 pm today, the RBNZ will release its decision on its latest OCR review. Universally, analysts expect no change although to be fair analyst expectations were wrong at the last review. In Australia, the expectation is that the next RBA review will bring another cut for the core reason that not to cut will see the Aussie dollar rise and undermine their tenuous growth track. Currency wars in action.The UST 10yr yield is sharply lower today, at 1.64% and down -7 bps from this time yesterday. Gold is up +US$3 to US$1526/oz.US oil prices are down sharply, down more than -US$1.50 at now just on US$57/bbl. The Brent benchmark has fallen too to just on US$63.The Kiwi dollar has firmed slightly this morning, up to 63.2 USc. On the cross rates we are still at 93 AUc. Against the euro we are at 57.4 euro cents. That puts the TWI-5 back up to just on 68.5.You can find links to the articles mentioned today in our show notes.Get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz and subscribe to receive this podcast in your favourite podcast app - we're on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or subscribe on our website.Tell your friends and leave us a review - we welcome feedback from listeners.

AUSTRAC, Australia’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing regulator, encourage consumers to check if money service providers they are going to use are registered with AUSTRAC. Nathan Newman, National Manager for Regulatory Operations of AUSTRAC, explains why all money transfer dealers must register with AUSTRAC and how criminals can exploit remittance services. - NEWS: ออสแทรก (AUSTRAC) เตือนประชาชนให้ใช้บริการโอนเงินไปต่างประเทศที่จดทะเบียนกับออสแทรกเท่านั้น เพื่อเลี่ยงการพัวพันการฟอกเงินโดยไม่รู้ตัว ขณะผู้ที่ให้บริการโดยไม่ได้จดทะเบียนกับออสแทรกถือว่า กำลังทำความผิดอาญามีโทษทั้งจำและปรับหลายแสนดอลลาร์

N.B. February 17th 2020- The FATF Mutual Evaluation report mentioned in the podcast is still pending. The GRC Professional Podcast caught with our regular AML expert Andrew Ham to discuss Austrac's approach to money transfers and remittances. If you have a position on the remittances and money transfers, or any general perspectives on Austrac's regulatory or enforcement approach, please email kwame.slusher@thegrcinstitute.org

Welcome to Finance and Fury In today's episode, I thought it was important to cover Currency Bill - Might have seen in the news – headlines about the $10k transaction – Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 – what we are talking about – had first round through Parliament Goes deeper - Talked about this topic last year in October – Cashless Society episode – link to episode Policy is trying to control behaviour – by making the undesirable activity illegal – regardless of validity or effect Gov wants all money accounted for – which is far easier when it is electronic rather than cash based – A lot to unpack in this – you might have seen this reported on in the news – give a quick recap on the bill – Then go through why these extreme measures are needed to help get out ‘black market’ economy under control – outrageously high when compared to 0% of GDP, at around 2%-3% of GDP - being satirical (later) Quick overview of the bill – Now - people could be jailed for two years and fined $25,200 – if you make a purchase or sale for more than $10,000 in cash in one transaction. Read most of the draft legislation - called the Currency (Restrictions on the Use of Cash) Bill 2019 if you are interested in reading the full thing   Under the proposed law - all cash transactions between businesses and individuals would be limited to $10,000 Any amount over this would be considered criminal – the same proposed changes announced in the 2018-19 budget we quickly ran through in an episode briefly a while back now – but now we have more details – Penalties = jail time and fines would apply to both the individual and the business part of the transaction. There are a couple of exemptions to the cash ban. The $10,000 cash limit would not apply to individual-to-individual transactions, such as the private sale of a second-hand car. The limit also wouldn’t apply when depositing or withdrawing money from a bank. The reason given for this bill is to crack down on the black market economy - The argument for doing so is based on the numbers provided by the 2017 Black Economy taskforce report, which say as much as 3% of Australia's GDP – some $50 billion – could be getting lost to the black economy But these numbers don't stand up to any serious scrutiny - the taskforce itself plainly says the 3% figure is just a guess - "We acknowledge that this conclusion is a qualitative one" and the figures "should be taken as indicative only" - no actual evidence on the size of Australia's black economy - $50bn is a guess – when Look at OECD countries – no 3rd word African countries – we are well below average of just above 5% to GDP – Aus is about 2-3% - but this figure is essentially a guess – if the Gov knows about it, it isn’t black market – Where did the recommendations for this Cash Act come from? Came from the 2017 Black Economy Taskforce report – same KPMG report where the estimated size of the black market economy came from – which increased by 65% from 2012 (OECD report) to 2015 (KPMG report) this cash ban is a recommendation is part of this report – provided by one of the big four global accounting firms – KPMG – which also has conducted research to provide supporting evidence for their recommendations Interesting – company recommending the policy that will profit them, along within their industry – If this goes through, I’m sure that Mastercard and Visa, banks, etc will be very happy and might choose to choose KPMG to do more consulting or accounting work for them – I might be paranoid but that seems suspicious Irony of this report - KPMG and probably most major financial institutions (even our Big 4 banks in Aus) are the biggest perpetrators of facilitating tax evasion and money laundering - perpetrated by their clients in multinational banks, corporations – along with the billionaires who own/run each of the banks or companies There are a lot of cases in the past few years of illegal activity by banks, in most cases knowingly and just turning a blind eye – they pay the fines – say sorry – gov gets a bit more money to grow – shareholders suffer – CEO pays seem to not be affected – GFC – too much risk and straw breaking back – CEO bonus after bailouts using government funds – which can only be paid back through taxing the population Exposes the subtle expropriation the socialise loses, which privatising the profits The outcome of the recommendation is so that the individual to small business cash transfers are eliminated overtime to start implementing a cashless society – death by 1,000 cuts If this cash restriction is placed into law - it has been drafted so that the exemptions to the ban, such as for withdrawing cash from a bank, can be removed by the Minister at any time – therefore, at any point once this is in place the government can decide to ban cash transfers between individuals above $10k, or placing restrictions on the ability of Australians to access their own cash through withdrawals or transfers While our cap is at $10k based around older report – KPMG are already lobbying for the limit to be reduced to $2,000 – putting new legislation into law can be a lot harder than minor amendments to one detail within the other 200 pages. We seem to have another situation a policy being entered into parliament by either pay is essentially a template forwarded to them by one of the companies that the legislation is meant to regulate If you are Microsoft – Massive company, diverse revenue streams, brand, etc. – plus profits after R&D – hard for some tech companies to achieve – it actually helps you long term to have AI employment taxed like Bill Gates said that he might be for. They can afford it, they would have fired people in the process anyway, so wages might not go down by much – put if productivity goes up and no other companies who are competitors can afford the AI employees to compete – keep moving in the same direction we have been for over 100 years – the consolidation in size and market share of a few companies. There does need to be a speed limit to this though – Gov in the US did a decent job of this via the Sherman Anti Trust act – monopoly busting of the ‘oligarchs’ like Standard Oil. But they only reason this legislation worked is that it was enforced – it is still law – so why does Google have a much higher market share and monopoly powers than almost any company since the Dutch East India Trading company Can't pronounce in Dutch – VOC for short – in today’s terms – just under $8trn value – to this day no other company has been as big or powerful – owned nations and armies – 70k employees Not to mention the 10s of thousands of slaves – perspective – Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, FB, Exon Mob, Bank of America, plus the next 12 behemoth companies come to about $8trn in valuations How can one company get so big? Form of Mercantilism that was used a lot under colonial days – Companies are given barriers of protection or monopoly contracts of trade or sale, exemption from tax, etc. Honestly – looking at it – Globalisation is similar however now we have the internet and don’t have sail ships and cannons – multinational company which help to provide direction to the politician in return for either donation, future job, whatever nepotistic arrangement can be thought of Human behaviours change to adapt to the environment – Centrelink with Gifting – If you gift $10,001 p.a. for 3 years it will be counted towards assets still – but do $9,999 for 3, technically below the thresholds – a difference of $2 p.a. If it goes down to $2 transactions, start investing in a lot of Dollar Stores to laundry the illegal cash – criminals by nature adapt to get around the laws – while the vast majority of the population is law-abiding – don’t want to be a criminal so will follow new laws – regardless of how absurd Every new law creates a new class of criminal The real outcome of this will be to punish those who are doing the right thing and not involved with the black market, and then those that are will just start billing at $9,999 a pop – Criminals are called criminals for a reason – they aren’t doing what the laws say already – so what is capping the transaction limits on businesses going to do in the grand scheme of things when the black market will change one small thing, might cost 30% margins to launder money but still around same rates as companies are meant to pay Not only will this have very little effect on the black market – the justifications don’t stack up to this level of measure – the Black market economy – Funny thing is – looking back in history – every time there is a black market in anything, some people are making money out of it – the more money the better the economy – but only if it is locally spent – Miami during the 80s with the Cocaine boom – mass inflow of untaxed cash – more than dealers could spend – as they spent at legitimate businesses – cars, clothes, houses, etc. – Mini economic boom due to local illegal cash velocity – modern – global transfers to lower tax environment – so illegal activities domestically lead to money disappearing, not being laundered and spent back into the economy – Don’t take this as an endorsement of illegal tax evasion, money laundering, etc. – but how different is it to spending $25m on lawyers, structures and offshore conduits or sink letter box offices in other countries to do it ‘within the regulations’ – versus money laundering at a cost of $25m in handling fees – no tax either way for Gov – who this bill is for How is this going to help? Thankfully the reports from Gov have calculated the potential benefits of the bill The "closest thing" to calculable benefits is a speech where it was said that implementing the recommendations of the black economy taskforce "could bring in $5.3 billion over the next four years" he points out. take the yearly average - equates to about $1.325 billion per year in additional taxes on GST, stamp duty, etc. Mostly Government transaction costs avoided Australians use credit cards to purchase $1bn of G&S every single day – approx. $365bn p.a. Something that probably isn’t taking into consideration is that for each dollar transacted via credit card – there are merchant fees charged by the financial institutions = 0.87 cents for every dollar on average – as a rough estimate – we are paying just under $9m per day in credit card transaction fees = $3.5bn p.a. This bill does a similar thing to most regulation post 1960 - granting monopoly protection through additional barriers - for banks this is their revenue stream through fees on transaction options being limited and they happen to provide the remaining legal options – economic term for this is ‘rent seeking’ or extracting from the economy for no positive output. I remember once upon a time when all credit card charges were added on top of the purchase amount – go into a store and cash or card are the same (except AMEX) - Businesses made the decision to price everything at the CC level to avoid the arguments with customers over why they have to pay extra – More regulation = unintentionally cementing a bank monopoly on transactions and economy gets very lopsided = all for the sake of a $1.3 billion annual increase in the Government's tax take? Or even to try and swat at a non-existent black economy problem? Just another layer on the price control policies for the economy – setting caps or floors But the gains for Banks in fees, that the billions in CC fees each year isn’t even scratching the surface on the total volume of financial leverage behind the scene – Modern economy has innovated to continually scale up the value that flows through the financial system - Foreign remittances, derivatives, securities, loans, structured financial products –these are just the tip of an iceberg. I know that most people may be thinking to buy BTC now – blockchain has great potential in emerging as a competitive threat to financial institutions – I think the Gov also thought of that: This policy is in an effort to crack down on the "black economy" -may be extended to cryptocurrency First version of the bill specifically excluded cryptocurrencies from this limit, but now shadow assistant treasurer Stephen Jones has said the law should be extended to cryptocurrencies – "If the motivation is genuinely looking at addressing fraud, tax avoidance, terrorism, and criminal activities then we should look at all of the currencies that are likely to be subject of that," said there is bipartisan support for this – in politics – bipartisan support is a scary word – means they all mostly support, regardless of party – Have the power to regulate crypto as well – AUSTRAC– regulation terrorism and money laundering/tax avoidance Banning cash transactions over $10,000 will not end the tax evasion and money laundering of the “black economy” The known outcome is removing the right to privacy in financial affairs through reporting regulations, reducing you available of cash transfers along with future limits on withdrawals, creating a situation limiting any escape to policies such as “bail-in” and negative interest rates This is a big topic – and Two big things I haven’t really seen mentioned – but come into play Next Monday – go into how the Bail-in laws fit in, along with negative interest rates – This policy controls behaviour of forcing larger amounts of cash to be transferred/stored by banks If you cant withdraw cash – then it is sitting there either getting taken to bail out a companies debt or now the bank is charging you to deposit money (not to mention inflation) Also, run through options to preserve capital – look at other forms of money – historical money – due to this legislation having the capacity to be a sign of identity regulation on Crypto markets, won't be BTC or others sorry. Also, talk on how to fix the real black market economy going on by not some clandestine secret society, but the brands that you see or use every day – might take 2 or 4 eps to do Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you want to get in touch you can visit financeandfury.com.au or go to the contact page here.     

Welcome to Finance and Fury, the Furious Friday edition Been talking about monetary system – today dive into Crypto currency Crypto currency – means nothing - has to do with individual coins/tokens/whatever –   Preface – Don’t have as deep an understanding on the overall crypto market as I do on the fiat money system, and especially blockchain   I do know enough about BTC to know one thing – I wouldn’t buy BTC personally – You may love it – good If I get something technical incorrect – let me know – But ill be talking from fundamental POV – helps to explain where I come from –   We all know the story – In 2008 - Bitcoin was proposed by unknown author/s - pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto At the heart of blockchain is the distributed ledger. In its simplest terms, a distributed network is a shared database. Rather than one central entity holding the information, it’s spread through a network of millions of sites or nodes. This decentralization offers many benefits over traditional, centralized systems: increased security and transparency, for starters. use of a trustless, fungible and tamper resistant distributed ledger called a blockchain Ironic it is called a decentralised currency, when you need power and the internet to access Since Bitcoin's inception, thousands of other cryptocurrencies have been introduced – no limit or requirement to join   cryptography allowed the currency to have: Reading summary here - Trustless system allows you to trust in the system without needing to trust in the parties with which you’re transacting. Computers verify each transaction with sophisticated algorithms to confirm the transfer of value and create a historical ledger of all activity. The computers that form the network that are processing the transactions are located throughout the world and importantly are not owned or controlled by any single entity. The process is real-time, and much more secure than relying on a central authority to verify a transaction.   In a shared ledger system, every transaction is recorded and verified in a transparent manner, and the system creates the trust by default – doesn’t show who is behind the ledger though Trustless technology — meaning you don’t have to know, like, or trust the person or entity you’re doing business with — Trust in the system versus not needing to trust – but this only refers to trust in transactions going through Fungibility fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable, and each of its parts is indistinguishable from another part – same as AUD tamper resistant – tamper how? Unregulated – does this mean tamper with prices? Or just tamper with transactions? Been hacking cases -  hackers steak API keys and get into wallets Or just destruction of blocks or theft – simplification - done on mining through forcing incorrect verification codes – change a c for a d in the chain – block is lost – range of 17%-23% lost for good of BTC   Going deeper is bitcoin an option? what do you value BTC in? Is it AUD? Or USD? Think about that – is it really a new form of money if it is still valued in current currency – not in relation to good themselves Fractal version of fiat currency – you need fiat money to start with to purchase under current economy Currencies need reserves to lower chance of going to zero – without something backing it (other currencies, gold, etc.) – no perceived floor in panic How do we value currencies? Subjective theory of value – what is the value? What we will pay –confidence Reserves and Gov decree - provide lots of subjective value in Fiat – lots of confidence – until there isn’t Seen currencies suffer massively under this – even with safety measures Subjective value – when btc goes 11k, is seen as subjective value – speculation in further prices Has a form of floor value mechanism – cost of mining versus price – if price goes to $2k, nobody mine – supply stop Confidence - When it is lost – depending on how bad - impossible to regain –requires confidence – or short memory The fact that BTC doesn’t have an Intrinsic value doesn’t matter as much as how resilient it is to confidence shocks– BTC never been through a financial collapse – created around 2009 – We know how other asset classes will perform – never seen BTC performance in panic – who knows? Unregulated leads to fraud and manipulation – or regulation being introduced Future regulations are a worry – for the most part left alone – easy to regulate – Requires internet – Aus providers easily block IPs – what if access through internet is blocked – can’t verify without internet connection May have a base value purely due to the areas it is most useful for – tax evasion, laundering, terrorism, illegal stuff – North Korea blocked in cash transfers, but could trade in crypto - utility token until use taken the supply of it also being snapped up by Governments – China, seized all of the citizens BTC, while on the surface against it, they likely have the largest control over the mining and ownership of BTC – come back to this in a sec Have been money seizures in the past 100 years – gold by FDR – made it illegal to own more than allowed Forced buyback at $20.5USD ounce, then went on buying spree and eventually pushed price to $35 by Nixon - Doesn’t escape concentrations in control/supply – cheapest power or deepest pockets – China has both June 2018, over 80% of Bitcoin mining is performed by six mining pools - five of those six pools are managed by individuals or organizations located in China. Other is in Iceland. First – why concentration in china? Cheap power – mining takes a lot of Electricity power requirements Why Iceland or China – mining Using as much as Nigeria – 90m people – soon as much as japan No way it can be allowed if environmentalists get wind – but that is what you need to increase mining incentives – higher prices – current cost of mining 1BTC = $4k USD If prices are low - Then you hit a wall in the mining incentives – chain creation dries up Second – control of mining production and supply allows price manipulations – unregulated Painting the tape - a form of market manipulation whereby players attempt to influence the price of a security - buying and selling it among themselves create the appearance of substantial trading activity. ... Painting the tape is an illegal activity that is prohibited – but only in markets that are regulated We are both BTC miners – we both trade the same coins back and forward – slowly increasing the Also Called a ramp – old trick – think boiler room – painting the tape Price action is going up – who would have most influence on this? Could go to $50k - Looks to be having a second wind bubble – Remember the first Massive bubble Sceptical of price transactions - Over time there are studies being published – may start to show Evidence of fraud - nothing new Every market has this Why markets have regulators - Believe that BTC not manipulated? Magnet due to it The trustless system is helping reduce any exposure of fraud – that would create a confidence Collapse – Confidence – how confident you are that others will still be confident? Computers trust as long as the trade transaction clears the key – watchdogs in markets see something up and investigate Also important – creates a new class of accidental criminals – have to declare it on returns, - Govs will track down using powers from AUSTRAC and ATO -     Summary -   What do you think in terms of value when you think BTC – what can you trade it for/exchange it? Terms of currency conversion – as long as there is dollars – another form of digital monetary expansion Most money in existence is in 1s and 0s – fracking banking reserve in modern economy Crypto - Allows for more money to be traded away into 1s and 0s Don’t have a good feeling about it – further into the rabbit hole - Removal of value further from a dollar – at least you can hold it in your hand if the system is crashing Think about it – how decentralised is it when you need power and the internet to access it? And when it has an infinite supply – if there is no confidence that the unit will retain value over longer term – not adopted as monetary system – How would the global economy operate if as a country you could just create a new Crypto currency and bail on your existing one No country would trade or trust you to repay your debts/not just bail on a currency once it runs out of supply If fully adopted it would be a hybrid system of what is currently known – Still by governments/central banks – Back to being centralised – but now what would back this? And money completely out of your hands – No physical money then System that is more centralised –control the cost of money and supply completely – non held outside of the system like cash of gold Don’t own any, don’t recommend it – if you want – go ahead, I like the potential blockchain has Fan of the free market and new tech – but don’t see it as anything to invest in and hold Personally – capital preservation is more important to me – if BTC came out when I was 16 – would have    Next ep – look at another type of mining - Gold - Gold and bitcoin are both a form of money – one has been around for recorded history – interesting that Symbols for crypto always resembles gold or silver coins Thanks for listening, if you'd like to get in contact you can do so here. 

The GRC Professional chats with Andrew Ham who works at Lawyers on Demand Asia Pacific and is a consultant at AML Experts, about some of the lessons learned from the Annual Austrac Compliance Report.

头条新闻1. ETH和EOS的官网流量远超于其它公链项目今日时戳资本发布了一份《全球主要公链项目数据分析报告》。报告对16个公链项目进行数据对比后发现：1.从官网流量上看ETH和EOS数据远超于其它公链项目，ETC、IOST和AE排名靠后；2.从社区运营上看，ETH在各大社区榜单中排名榜首(Telegram除外)，AE和BTM在各大社区中排名较后；3.从一级市场募资时间上看，多数集中在2017年，一半以上的公链项目最高价出现在2018年1月，约1/3的链项目最低价是在2017年10月。2. 部分微信公众号被腾讯封停或因发布爱西欧和虚拟货币交易炒作信息据新浪科技消息，腾讯方面对新浪科技表示，部分公众号涉嫌发布爱西欧和虚拟货币交易炒作信息，违反《即时通讯工具公众信息服务发展管理暂行规定》，已被责令屏蔽所有内容，账号被永久封停。国内新闻3. 工信部将加大区块链扶持力度 构建完善区块链的标准体据北京商报消息，工业和信息化部信息和软件服务业司巡视员李颖日前在“第22届中国国际软件博览会区块链与数据治理高端研究会”上指出，区块链是一个未来发展方向，但是目前还很不成熟，现在基础的架构还远远没有定型，所以还是要比较清醒辩证地看待区块链的发展，不要盲从，特别是不要做出超越法律和规范边界的行为。同时李颖也表示，将进一步加大对区块链产业的扶持力度，构建完善区块链的标准体系。4. 黄连金：不考虑安全将是未来区块链项目失败原因之一核聚链创始人、美国分布式商业应用公司CEO黄连金表示：“虽然区块链有比较好的安全属性比如数据的完整性，但是在保密和可用性方面原生的区块链比特币和以太坊没有做好。另外真正项目落地时，只有数据完整性这个安全的属性是不够的。如果我们看看工信部的定义的区块链5层架构：应用层，激励层，共识层，网络层和数据层。我们区块链项目落地的时候必须考虑5层中每一层的安全。 比如在应用层，我们必须考虑智能合约的安全，否则诸如‘The DAO'，BEC，SMT 一样的安全事件肯定还会重演。在其他层也同样需要有安全控制。盲目上线区块链项目，不考虑安全将来会是区块链项目失败的主要原因之一。 一个区块链项目必须至少投入5%到10%的总的budget 到安全。这个应该是行业的标准。”5. 宝二爷：FT下跌只是因为熊市，尽管亏了很多但我仍然相信FT国际新闻6. 澳大利亚比特币支付需求攀升，Cointree和Gobbill合作获监管机构批准据coinspeaker消息，根据加密统计数据，澳大利亚在过去三年中由数字货币支持的支付金额大幅增加了3300％，澳大利亚人更愿意用数字货币支付税款、信用卡还款而不是法定货币，主要是因为区块链技术能够确保透明度。金融科技创业公司Gobbill与澳大利亚数字货币交易所Cointree近日合作创建了数字货币支付系统，现在几乎所有的澳大利亚人都可以选择用数字货币支付账单。据了解，Cointree和Gobbill都获得了监管部门的批准，Gobbill拥有ASIC下的澳大利亚金融服务许可证，而Cointree则根据AUSTRAC获得许可，以履行反洗钱和反恐怖主义融资义务。新的合作伙伴关系很可能成为受澳大利亚数字货币爱好者欢迎的发展趋势。虽然数字货币仍然被该国大多数知名银行避而不谈，但此次合作仍然为加密信徒提供了另一个数字货币被认可的案例。7. 委内瑞拉实行双货币并行政策委内瑞拉总统马杜罗宣布，8月20日起该国开始实施货币改革，实行数字货币“石油币”(Petro　cryptocurrency)与传统货币“主权玻利瓦尔”　(sovereign bolivar)并行的货币政策。“主权玻利瓦尔”是委内瑞拉的新货币，从8月20日开始取代委内瑞拉原货币“强势玻利瓦尔”。新货币和旧货币的兑换率为1主权玻利瓦尔等于10万强势玻利瓦尔。石油币则将作为该国的国际记账单位，以及国内工资、商品、服务定价的基准。1石油币等于3600主权玻利瓦尔，1石油币等于60美元。委内瑞拉石油币是第一个由主权国家发行并以自然资源作为支撑的加密数字货币，这种货币将被用来进行国际支付。8. 肯尼亚或将在总统选举中运用分布式账本（DLT）技术 以提高选举透明度据彭博社消息，肯尼亚独立选举和边界委员会（IEBC）主席瓦夫拉·切布卡蒂近日发布声明称，为提高选举透明度，并确保总统候选人能够顺利获知选举结果，肯尼亚正打算将验证和记录加密货币交易的分布式账本技术（DLT）用于总统选举中。据悉，肯尼亚总统Uhuru Kenyatta最近已启动了区块链和人工智能（AI）工作组，目的是在现有经济框架内部署区块链技术。9. 苹果联合创始人：比特币比传统金融机构更可信据Zycrypto消息，苹果公司联合创始人Steven Wozniak近日在一份声明中表示，人类社会金融体系饱受通胀困扰，比特币对此具有相对独立性，因此它比传统金融机构更可信。10. Coinbase交易量过去八个月下跌83％据商业公司伯恩斯坦的研究称，自1月以来，Coinbase交易所从1月份的高位持续暴跌超过83％，消费者活跃度也处于历史最低水平。与此同时，像Bitstamp和Kraken这样相对规模较小的交易所和位于马耳他的币安交易所却没有太大的损失。并且与Coinbase的暴跌相反，OKEx最近几周的交易量激增，从6月的28亿美元上升至7月的57亿美元，也许是唯一一个在月度记录报告中环比增长97％的交易所。此前，Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong曾在接受采访时称，Coinbase去年每天注册5万名新用户。11. 数字货币公司Tether八月已发行价值4.15亿USDT据CCN消息，数字货币公司Tether于八月发行了价值4.15亿美元的USDT，这使该币种市值升至第八位。上周有报道称Tether已发行价值2亿美元的USDT，随后该公司一直在发行USDT。上周六再次发行2000枚USDT。Tether市值已创历史新高，达27亿美元。USDT现报1.00美元，涨幅0.09％。12. Bitfinex钱包地址转出1.7万枚BTC据《币 世 界》监测，北京时间15:37，Bitfinex钱包地址（1Kr6QS开头）分六次转出近1.7万枚BTC，其中约1万枚BTC进入了未标记的刚建立的新钱包地址，7000枚BTC进入了一个7月18日建立的钱包地址。经对比发现，在这笔交易发生的约50分钟前，比特币富豪榜上第1名Bitfinex冷钱包地址刚刚转出1.5万枚BTC至Bitfinex钱包地址（1Kr6QS开头）。13. 金色内参：这个阻力位将决定BTC后市的走势1、BTC挖矿情况—比特币挖矿仍有利润空间，可无视“已经跌破挖矿收支平衡”的猜测。 2、BTC大额转账—上周BTC链上转账较活跃，大户整理资金较频繁，但大部分是在场外进行，并无大资金流入交易所。 3、BTC相关资讯及监管—世界各地区监管正在趋严，短期对比特币利空，但长期利多。4、BTC市场情绪—恐慌情绪有所收敛，但整体处在高度恐慌中，需要时间修复。 5、BTC后市预测—6800美元是重要阻力位，一旦突破，市场做多资金会入场，届时反弹的目标可看到11000-12000美元左右。

Another episode from APAC Blockchain in Melbourne, this time with Bradley Brown - one of the leads at Austrac. We discuss regulation, ICOs, exchanges, new Austrac laws that come in 3rd April and much more. As usual, find us on iTunes & Subscribe: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/decentralized/id1376769592 Listen, Like, Share, Enjoy!

Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Esta semana empezamos protestando, indignados. El estado de algunas carreteras en España comienza a parecerse al que presentaban a finales de año 1936; parecen zonas de guerra. Y lo peor es que no parece que este problema vaya a tener una solución a corto plazo. Nos indignamos porque vemos como la presión sobre los la vía son cada vez mayores, tanto en forma de sanciones como de presión policial. Se invierten cantidades ingentes de dinero en investigación y desarrollo para poder recaudar más pero las carreteras están cada vez peor. Nos hemos liado haciendo autopistas a lo loco y ahora no hay recursos económicos para mantenerlas. En cuanto a viajeros, Fernando El Búfalo está preparando su Austracádiz, un viaje raruno, con itinerario inusual y con lo mínimo imprescindible. Esto seguro que incluye una cartera medio vacía. Fernando tiene en su haber alguno de los viajes más locos que se hayan hecho en moto, como por ejemplo ir desde Alaska a Nueva York en el invierno más frío de los últimos 100 años. Seguro que no nos defrauda con esta nueva aventura. Charly Sinewan lleva más de diez años viajando en moto por el mundo. Cuando dejó su trabajo, estable y bien remunerado, era porque necesitaba algo más. Hoy no queremos preguntarle por sus planes de futuro o por el comportamiento de su BMW. Esta semana queremos que nos cuente su vida en retrospectiva. Queremos que mire atrás y escucharle decir que todo el sacrificio ha merecido la pena.Escucha este episodio completo y accede a todo el contenido exclusivo de Viajo en Moto. Descubre antes que nadie los nuevos episodios, y participa en la comunidad exclusiva de oyentes en https://go.ivoox.com/sq/34631

***HEADPHONE USERS BEWARE*** And we are back! Hi guys, and welcome to another episode of our pod! Today we discuss Archer, the recent NYC measles outbreak, vaping 2.0, asteroids, water on the moon, deep sea Atlantic sharks, Usain Bolt in Australia, CBA vs. AUSTRAC, frozen fighter pilots, and bulletproof/ bioproof Teslas.    Which “Archer” Character Are You? Buzzfeed Quiz: https://www.buzzfeed.com/keelyflaherty/which-archer-character-are-you?utm_term=.jsKwDNlAQ#.rtY7PX3LB   Where to find the podcast: http://controllersandcouches.podbean.com https://soundcloud.com/user-653515096 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa6BFHYaUGh2uHzSK32xYyg https://www.instagram.com/controllersandcouches/ https://twitter.com/ControllersCou1 controllersandcouches@gmail.com   FullMetalChicken YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZp-BGhVI0jrlqscjDOIjTw   Stephfafahh Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephfafahh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephfafahh/ Tumblr: http://stephfafahh.tumblr.com/ Snapchat: stephfafahh Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/12030777-stephie Litsy: stephfafahh YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBheD721gz-nv5gRK_-lkow   Please help the show grow by subscribing, as well as rating and reviewing the show on iTunes!

International experts are warning that Australia is one of the most attractive destinations to launder money through real estate. Criminals from all over the world are looking at mansions in the suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney to park their cash. Reporter Connie Agius investigates the gaps in our money laundering laws and why they haven't been closed.

A discussion about the report released by the ACNC and AUSTRAC looking into the risks of money laundering and terrorism financing for charities and not-for-profits. Amongst details of the report's findings, we talk about the nature of the risks faced by charities and what they can do to mitigate them. You can read the full report, Australia’s non-profit organisation sector: money laundering and terrorism financing risk assessment, on the ACNC website at acnc.gov.au/nfprisk

Agradece a este podcast tantas horas de entretenimiento y disfruta de episodios exclusivos como éste. ¡Apóyale en iVoox! Después de algunas vicisitudes, al segundo intento, salió al directo el programa. Fernando "El Búfalo" nos cuenta desde Conil sus proyectos de futuro: el viaje desde Australia hasta Cádiz, "Austracádiz". También nos habla de su nuevo libro,algo que sus fans están esperando como agua de mayo.Escucha este episodio completo y accede a todo el contenido exclusivo de Viajo en Moto. Descubre antes que nadie los nuevos episodios, y participa en la comunidad exclusiva de oyentes en https://go.ivoox.com/sq/34631