The Buzzfeed report
Buzzfeed has released the result of a year long - so they say - investigation into a leak of FinCEN reports. These are the documents banks file with the US government if they think that a transaction is a little dubious. Say, the possibility that the cash moving might be to do with drugs, or tax evasion, or corruption, or any other of the long list of things banks aren't supposed to enable to happen.
The problem here is that Buzzfeed - and those other 100 odd media outlets - haven't grasped what these documents are about. The claims have therefore impacted upon bank stock prices. Which is ludicrous when we consider what the reports really are about.
The supposition being that Buzzfeed has caught the banks out in not stopping doing what they shouldn't do and therefore there might be some comeback, some prosecutions, or fines. When, actually, these documents are the very things that the banks should be filing with the government in order not to be prosecuted nor pay fines. So there's no implication of banks getting into trouble for these docs - whatever Buzzfeed might say about the matter.
Bank stocks
The headlines are full of moves in bank stocks:
European bank shares fell on Monday after thousands of leaked files released over the weekend showed how a number of major institutions had engaged for years in handling up to $2 trillion in dirty money.
Nonsense, a complete and total misunderstanding of the situation.
Bank stocks in Europe were down sharply on the news.
The documents identified more than $2 trillion in transactions between 1999 and 2017 that were flagged by financial institutions’ internal compliance officers as possible money laundering or other criminal activity, the report said. The top two banks are Deutsche Bank, which disclosed $1.3 trillion of
