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Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

nytimes.com

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Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#91

Post by carom »

wavefunction wrote: post #64
TACIXAT wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large loans and real estate deals are not the type of money laundering this software detects. It is looking for unusual transaction flows between accounts. For example, if an account receives large amounts money for inconsistent purposes (e.g. computer services and farm equipment), or has large amounts of money flow through it while maintaining a relatively low average balance (e.g. 10 million received and sent when…

[flagged]

Really? I didn't see anything about Russia in that article. It seemed mostly about sweetheart loans for Trump in exchange for holding money or buying bonds from Deutsche.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#92

Post by repolfx »

fwip wrote: post #22
bla3 wrote: post #17

Subjectively it feels like NYT publishes a lot more negative articles about Deutsche Bank than about any other bank, or at least those articles get upvoted much more frequently here. Does anyone know what's up with that? I would've assumed that most banks are equally terrible.

Deutsche Bank is currently implicated in (or at the very least, relevant to) ongoing news regarding the US President's finances. That makes it more newsworthy.

So, are the Germans the new Russians then? Sounds like having failed to pin a dozen or so different crimes on Trump now his enemies are trying to harass his banks in retaliation for working with him? A classic strategy. Any bank can be found guilty of money laundering if the authorities want because the wording of the laws are so vague.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#93

Post by [deleted] »

sjg007 wrote: post #69
fareesh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me as an outsider that everyone's standard for honesty has been reduced because it's an acceptable sacrifice if it means sliming the opposing political party. This has undertones of conveying that the President "got away" with this activity, which is the intended takeaway from the article. The quality of journalism seems to have been hit hardest by this philosophy. For over a year all of us around the wor…

The Mueller Report that totally exonerates the President and yet the President won't release it in full to Congress. The only one sliming the President is Trump himself.

[deleted]

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#94

Post by maxxxxx »

jandrese wrote: post #90
delinka wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea, presumably, is that the "finder's fee" is money paid to the bank for finding money laundering, and that fee outweighs the profits from the transactions themselves. "Fees" are not levied against an institution, "fines" are. And in that light, yes, fines are indeed too low to thwart a failure to identify the correct transactions.

Lawmakers and the public would almost certainly balk at billions in "finders fees" being just given to the banks, even if the money did come from seizures of the illicit assets.

I want a finders fee for reporting anyone who makes an illegal proposal to me. It would be a huge moral hazard to pay banks for flagging illegal activity. This should be part of normal procedure.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#95

Post by fareesh »

notfromhere wrote: post #89
fareesh wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading the report on the day of the release and its conclusion was written quite plainly that no American colluded with any foreign government. It was one of the principal conclusions. As for the obstruction aspect - isn't that now a mere technicality? A man and his team have been falsely accused, he tried to get out of the burden of being politically undermined by the drama of an investigation that would…

The report states multiple instances where he attempted to fire the special counsel or interfered with the investigation. Being upset does not make obstruction any less a crime; the report specifically states that it does not clear the president of obstruction of justice. You are literally arguing that if you feel you are innocent, you are able to obstruct an investigation because you know you are innocent. That is n…

Which is my point - the report's conclusion contradicts a very large number of headlines and stories that the news media spoke of in near-factual terms. We are now in a place where nothing he did impacted the outcome - since the investigation concluded unimpeded, but the fact that he tried is now a new reason to go after him.

This is what I am referring to in my original comment about the quality of journalism and its motivations - it's an endless chase, and to be honest he's right to call it a witch hunt against him specifically.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#96

Post by fareesh »

sjg007 wrote: post #86
fareesh wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that affect the principal conclusions of the report? The conclusion can't change when the redacted portion is unredacted. The person who came to the conclusion did so after writing those redacted sections, right?

It's called showing your work. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/muell...

Yes but he showed the work and arrived at a conclusion as well. I am not referring to Mr. Barr's letter so the article you linked is not really relevant. The investigation team themselves reviewed all material and came to a conclusion.

The premise is that this investigation team was seen by the entire country as a fair party to conduct an investigation and reach a conclusion. Now that the conclusion is not what the news media was suggesting all this time, there's all kinds of skepticism and wanting to see the work.

This is an echo of 2016 again. The news media alluded to an entirely different election result, the result was the complete opposite, and slowly everyone started to question how the media could be so wrong again.

It seems like everyone's standard for truth is "if reality contradicts the media it means something is being hidden" as opposed to "the media was wrong because they are bad at this"

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#97

Post by tabs_masterrace »

mrfredward wrote: post #80
usrusr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finance lobbying power must be weaker than popularly assumed if they failed to inspire a proportionate finder's fee that would make flagging worthwhile. Of course, if I tune my cynicism level a bit darker that line of thought breaks down again, because then I start factoring in the possibility of "premium service tiers" with fees so high that a) no client in their right mind would ever consider them unless they have…

Is the idea of a finder's fee so negative? If banks regulators and the banks came up with a plan where sniffing out money laundering was rewarded and banks made extra money helping the justice system take on financial crime...isn't that the best possible outcome? Of course the danger of such a system is banks would be overzealous in their reporting in the hopes of getting a lucky payout. That's another pitfall that w…

That's a bit naive I think. First it wouldn't be very effective, banks are banks, that is their expertise, just because there's a reward doesn't turn bankers into policeman that will detect and act on money laundering. Then, who shall pay for the reward. The government, the central bank? Tax reductions? How valuable is a cash reward for one of the big banks anyway.

Then on top of that politics come into play, with all these increasing trade embargoes and bi-lateral agreements, many transactions could be interpreted either as laundering or legit, depending on interests.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#98

Post by auntienomen »

throwawaymath wrote: post #30
bla3 wrote: post #17

Subjectively it feels like NYT publishes a lot more negative articles about Deutsche Bank than about any other bank, or at least those articles get upvoted much more frequently here. Does anyone know what's up with that? I would've assumed that most banks are equally terrible.

I don't know if the NYT actually does publish more negative articles about Deutsche Bank than other banks. But if what you're perceiving matches reality, I would assume it is for the following two reasons: 1. Deutsche Bank facilitated a basket option trading strategy used by Renaissance Technologies, which has since earned the latter an investigation from the IRS for aggressive tax avoidance. RenTech is (unfortunatel…

Also, Deutsche Bank (along with HSBC, iirc) took quite a lot of dirty money during the financial crisis. And there was that Libor thing...

Most (perhaps all) of the big banks have a list of fines, crimes, and scandals, but Deutsche Bank's list seems particuarly egregious.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#99

Post by elliekelly »

tabs_masterrace wrote: post #97
mrfredward wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the idea of a finder's fee so negative? If banks regulators and the banks came up with a plan where sniffing out money laundering was rewarded and banks made extra money helping the justice system take on financial crime...isn't that the best possible outcome? Of course the danger of such a system is banks would be overzealous in their reporting in the hopes of getting a lucky payout. That's another pitfall that w…

That's a bit naive I think. First it wouldn't be very effective, banks are banks, that is their expertise, just because there's a reward doesn't turn bankers into policeman that will detect and act on money laundering. Then, who shall pay for the reward. The government, the central bank? Tax reductions? How valuable is a cash reward for one of the big banks anyway. Then on top of that politics come into play, with al…

> First it wouldn't be very effective, banks are banks, that is their expertise, just because there's a reward doesn't turn bankers into policeman that will detect and act on money laundering.

That’s exactly how the system works though, minus the reward. The AML Officer is personally responsible for implementing policies & procedures that are “reasonably designed” to prevent and detect money laundering. Then the banks report their suspicions to the government. The government is not the first line of defense or even investigation when it comes to money laundering.

Re: Deutsche Bank Says Software to Detect Money Laundering Had a Bug

#100

Post by giarc »

Harvey-Specter wrote: post #54
tantalor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it possibly be both "basic functionality was not working" (high severity) and "no suspicious transactions had slipped through" (low severity)?

Pretty easy to understand if you swap what the software is detecting to "asteroids which are on impact course with earth". Basic functionality is to detect asteroids which are on a collision course with earth. The fact that no undetected asteroids struck earth doesn't mean the software worked or didn't work, nor does it mean that detecting asteroids which are on a collosion course with earth is not basic functionalit…

Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence.
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