TD Bank gets fined a record $3 billion for alleged money laundering.

US and other western governments have spent the past two decades since 9-11 trying to get a handle on this money laundering issue. Know your client regulations, and other regulations that came about as a result of the Patriot Act and BSA.

None of that has worked.

The fines just keep getting bigger and bigger.

So who's gaming who here?

The banks that are allowed to operate for some period if time until they are caught, fined and / or merged with another bigger bank.

Or

The western governments that are fining banks like their own personal ATM machine?

HSBC fine in 2012 was $1.9 Billion.

This sent the banking industry scrambling to get in compliance. Seemed like a big deal at the time.

Now you got TD Bank with a record $3 billion fine.

Trend in the EU as well.

This massive fines issue supersedes banking.

The GDPR in the EU is being used to extract fines from American big-tech.

I'm fairly certain both Google and Apple have been fined.

And the fines continue to go up.

We've seen the emergence of economic warfare when it comes to this.

What percentage of companies are at the level where a government fine wouldn't put them out of business or force some other type of business restructuring or sell off? An example of this being USAA.

Why 5 posts?

Explain why Chase Bank wasn't closed for complicity with the Madhoff pozi. All the money was run through one checking account. And Dimon is on this side of the bars.

I seem to recall that Wells doesn't exactly check IDs for all transactions and plenty flows through them, but no consequences thus far. I'd imagine it's who's paying the politicians?

I think the biggest issue is the gives don't outweigh the risks and profit.

Once the fines outweigh the profits, then they'll stop.

~egon

Go open up a checking account at your local hometown bank and they'll find a way to ask you 100 compliance related questions.

But somehow institutional level money laundering can't be stopped.