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The Securities and Exchange Commission obtained, on 25 June 2012, a temporary restraining order and asset freeze against Wayne L. Palmer and his firm, National Note of Utah, LC alleging that he operated a real estate-based Ponzi scheme that bilked USD100 million from investors nationwide. Yet banks continued dealing with him.

As a result of concerns raised by ASIC, American Express Australia Limited has agreed to change its approach to the charging of a higher ‘default’ rate of interest to credit card customers who have defaulted in their payment obligations. The policy currently affects 7.9% of credit card accounts issued by AMEX. As a result of the changes the holders of those accounts will receive a reduction in interest rate of up to 6%.

Scam e-mails are nothing new and usually they are so boring they don't even register. But "Woolcock" paulwk@gmail.com 's "Money Transfer" scam mail is so amusing it justifies being included in the Fraud Hall of Fame. By the way, it was sent to an e-mail address at "countermoneylaundering.com." Twit.

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption has charged a number of people with a range of offences alleged to have been committed against insurance companies.

Carlo V di Florio, Director, Office of Compliance Inspections and Examination at the USA's Securities and Exchange Commission says that compliance and ethics are each an integral part of risk management in all businesses but especially in the financial sector were reputation greatly matters to the individual, to individual businesses to the industry as a whole and, ultimately, to the entire country. He was speaking to the National Society of Compliance Professionals on 17 October 2011.

Even though the UK classifies land-banking as a collective investment scheme and regulates it as such, the Insolvency Service says that far too many people are losing their money in such schemes

A riddle: if ACI Worldwide wants to buy S1 Corporation and S1 Corp wants to buy Fundtech and Fundtech wants to be bought by S1 but ACI does not want to buy Fundtech, who will buy who?

When Temple-Inland, a packaging and building products company in the USA spun off its Guaranty Bank subsidiary in 2009, the bank was "looted" and left in a parlous state, say the liquidators who have issued proceedings against Temple-Inland and several of its related companies, former officers and some executives who were still in post at the time the bank collapsed.

Mobile payment systems provider is facing a nice day as venture capitalists value the little business at some USD1,000 million.

US company SurePass says that it has developed a two-factor authentication system that avoids problems with the "RSA Breached Token Devices" so as to "deliver secure two-factor authentication via free mobile apps, text and electronic card"

The USA's Internal Revenue Service and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have announced that a small subset of individuals with only signature authority required to file the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBARs) will receive a one-year extension beyond the previously notified filing date of 30 June, 2011.

Three people have been arrested, and cash, goods and items used in the commission of offences seized in Hong Kong as police investigate a rapid-fire ATM scam involving data written to mag stripe cards and used in just two ATMs over a two week period.

The Philippines Central Bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, says that is has seen continued growth in remittances from Filipino workers overseas as the effects of the global financial crisis are factored out - but in March, the rate of growth was slower than in February.

When a private investigator approached a "friend" who worked in a bank and asked for information relating to the accounts of a politician, the clerk was willing to help. She says she thought she was helping the police when "Ramesh" asked for the information. It's the first prosecution of its kind in Malaysia.

A former director of Australian company Streetwise has been jailed for 8 1/2 years by a Sydney court for making fraudulent representations in support of applications for loans to his companies and fraudulently obtaining investments.